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"They" don't set the goalposts - reality does. Also, they are not saying that no level of vaccination is good enough - they are saying that the level of vaccina

"They" don't set the goalposts - reality does. Also, they are not saying that no level of vaccination is good enough - they are saying that the level of vaccination needed is dependent on a variety of factors, and that level is becoming increasingly difficult to reach due to variants and vaccine hesitancy. From the article: > Early on, the target herd immunity threshold was estimated to be about 60 to 70 percent of the population. Most experts, including Dr. Fauci, expected that the United States would be able to reach it once vaccines were available. > But as vaccines were developed and distribution ramped up through the winter and into the spring, estimates of the threshold began to rise. That is because the initial calculations were based on the contagiousness of the original version of the virus. The predominant variant now circulating in the United States, called B.1.1.7 and first identified in Britain, is about 60 percent more transmissible. > As a result, experts now calculate the herd immunity threshold to be at least 80 percent. If even more contagious variants develop, or if scientists find that immunized people can still transmit the virus, the calculation will have to be revised upward again.

kickout 5y ago
when did transmissibility become a defining metric? There are more transmissible pathogens (colds, flu), but we don't change society for those. I was told that mortality was the defining metric (and thus the reason for the restrictions, to save lives), so if B.1.1.7 is less lethal, why would the transmissibility play in? Also why isn't immunization from natural infection counting? I've seen to reason to _discount_ it; it just seems they are looking for ways to juke the stats
- rsynnott 5y ago
  > so if B.1.1.7 is less lethal, why would the transmissibility play in? I mean, if it was a _lot_ less lethal, and became permanently dominant, then the problem goes away. I think your mistake is in assuming that it is less lethal. What gave you that idea? It is believed to probably be _more_ lethal. > Also why isn't immunization from natural infection counting? It 'counts', but less so than vaccine immunity, because some variants defeat it while not defeating most vaccines (there's some messiness at the edges here; for instance AZ may not work very well for the South African variant).
- lamontcg 5y ago
  > if B.1.1.7 is less lethal, why would the transmissibility play in? Transmissibility, viral load and virulence should all be correlated. Alizon, S., Hurford, A., Mideo, N. and Van Baalen, M. (2009). Virulence evolution and the trade-off hypothesis: history, current state of affairs and the future. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22, 245–259. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1420-9101.2008.01658.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1420-9101... When you read stories that a particular variant increases one or two of those three and not the other, you should treat it skeptically. All three should tend to move together. B.1.1.7 is most likely more lethal, any studies contradicting that are probably not picking appropriate controls to compare against (e.g. the most vulnerable sub-populations of demographic slices having been already hit by old school D614G, so lethality appearing to fall no matter what).

kickout 5y ago

when did transmissibility become a defining metric? There are more transmissible pathogens (colds, flu), but we don't change society for those. I was told that mortality was the defining metric (and thus the reason for the restrictions, to save lives), so if B.1.1.7 is less lethal, why would the transmissibility play in? Also why isn't immunization from natural infection counting? I've seen to reason to _discount_ it; it just seems they are looking for ways to juke the stats

rsynnott 5y ago
> so if B.1.1.7 is less lethal, why would the transmissibility play in? I mean, if it was a _lot_ less lethal, and became permanently dominant, then the problem goes away. I think your mistake is in assuming that it is less lethal. What gave you that idea? It is believed to probably be _more_ lethal. > Also why isn't immunization from natural infection counting? It 'counts', but less so than vaccine immunity, because some variants defeat it while not defeating most vaccines (there's some messiness at the edges here; for instance AZ may not work very well for the South African variant).
lamontcg 5y ago
> if B.1.1.7 is less lethal, why would the transmissibility play in? Transmissibility, viral load and virulence should all be correlated. Alizon, S., Hurford, A., Mideo, N. and Van Baalen, M. (2009). Virulence evolution and the trade-off hypothesis: history, current state of affairs and the future. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22, 245–259. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1420-9101.2008.01658.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1420-9101... When you read stories that a particular variant increases one or two of those three and not the other, you should treat it skeptically. All three should tend to move together. B.1.1.7 is most likely more lethal, any studies contradicting that are probably not picking appropriate controls to compare against (e.g. the most vulnerable sub-populations of demographic slices having been already hit by old school D614G, so lethality appearing to fall no matter what).