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This probably explains the previously mysterious drop in Delta cases in the UK. In the U.S. why shouldn't we just shoot for herd immunity now? Not sure how eff

This probably explains the previously mysterious drop in Delta cases in the UK. In the U.S. why shouldn't we just shoot for herd immunity now? Not sure how effective restrictions and mandates will be in slowing things down and the costs to mental health and quality of life are so high.

brianwawok 5y ago
I wouldn't say we are shooting for it, but it looks like we are heading that direction.
SavantIdiot 5y ago
The US doesn't have a choice to shoot for herd immunity because the remaining willfully unvaccinated population is both anti-mask and anti-vax. EDIT: Guess I worded that badly. What I mean is: choosing herd immunity is inevitable, so there is no choice. It will happen. EDIT2: It didn't occur to me that there is a huge risk if more deadly mutations happen faster than herd immunity.
- carnitas 5y ago
  That means they will be infected and subsequently immune, boosting herd immunity
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- wusher 5y ago
  Herd immunity can also be achieved by the anti-vax people catching the virus. They can develop immunity by being sick instead of getting a shot.
  - SavantIdiot 5y ago
    Exactly. That's my point. It is unavoidable.
    - Animats 5y ago
      We can hope. Some people have already become ill from COVID more than once.[1] This is rare, but it happens. Immunity from vaccination seems to be stronger than immunity from having the disease, but it's too early to be sure. How long vaccine immunity lasts is an open question. So far, it's at least N months, where N is how long the vaccines have been in wide use. Beyond that is speculation. [1] https://www.brgeneral.org/news-blog/2021/july/can-i-get-covid-more-than-once-/ https://www.brgeneral.org/news-blog/2021/july/can-i-get-covi...
      - criticaltinker 5y ago
        > Immunity from vaccination seems to be stronger than immunity from having the disease, but it's too early to be sure Unless anyone can cite peer-reviewed sources that indicate otherwise, there doesn't appear to be any conclusive evidence on this point. In fact these publications provide evidence that naturally acquired immunity is just as effective as vaccination [1][2] ([2] hasn't been peer-reviewed yet). > How long vaccine immunity lasts is an open question. So far, it's at least N months, where N is how long the vaccines have been in wide use. Beyond that is speculation. I'm interested in recent peer-reviewed literature supporting this point, and would be grateful if anyone could share links. [1] SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived bone marrow plasma cells in humans https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4.pdf [2] Necessity of COVID-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v3.full.pdf https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v...
  - sjg007 5y ago
    Along with an accompanying crush of ICU hospitalizations and deaths.
    - mrhands69 5y ago
      Why haven't we spent time bolstering healthcare then? Why have all the field hospitals been destroyed as fast as they were put up?
      - amalter 5y ago
        We don't have enough doctors and nurses to staff the ICU beds bolted to the floors of the hospital. Those field hospitals are surge capacity; and work with hurricanes and earthquakes where a single part of the country is affected. You can bring in volunteers and reservists from other areas to create capacity. When the emergency is everywhere, and on-going, all of your surge capacity is gone.
        mrhands69 5y ago
        The emergency has been everywhere and ongoing for almost 2 years now. At what point do they make an effort and the government says "Hey, let's permanently bolster our hospital systems. We'll hire X amount of 'surge' staff, create X amount of 'surge' beds". But we don't do that. Instead we act surprised every time there's a surge, the media feeds off it and everyone starts infighting. I'm not convinced hospital capacity is really the problem people say it is.
        sjg007 5y ago
        You need to train more doctors first. That’s the issue.
      - logifail 5y ago
        > Why have all the field hospitals been destroyed as fast as they were put up? Take your pick from: a) They were a bit of a PR gimmick? Better for gov't to be seen to do _something_ than standing around wringing your hands and hoping things will improve...? b) They couldn't be staffed and equipped to provide appropriate and useful additional care? c) General hospitals were perhaps not quite as close to being overwhelmed as was reported? There were stories that German hospitals may have been slightly economical with the truth in terms of obtaining additional funding for ICU beds, which perhaps weren't needed or even ever created[0] [0] https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/corona-hilfen-schummelei-1-3-millionen-fuer-intensivbetten-kassiert-aber-wo-stehen-sie-a-00000000-0002-0001-0000-000175304170 https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/corona-hilfen-schummelei-1-3...
  - jampekka 5y ago
    Or catching the virus and being more or less asymptomatic.
  - paulmd 5y ago
    You can reach herd immunity on any one strain - but as we've seen, the virus can mutate faster than we can reach herd immunity. The arrival of delta (and the other four or five major strains) signal that that theory flat-out will not work, the virus is mutating faster than we are reaching herd immunity. By the time we actually reach full herd immunity, we will have strains that the vaccine only provides significantly diminished protection against - we are arguably already getting there with Delta.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- azth 5y ago
  > because the remaining willfully unvaccinated population is both anti-mask and anti-vax. That's not quite true. I know people who are not anti-vax, nor anti-mask, but they have an aversion to a new untested vaccine.
kzrdude 5y ago
Herd immunity (through vaccines) was always the goal, but I guess that's not what you mean?
rowland66 5y ago
The US is absolutely shooting for herd immunity now. Its just a question of how individual members of the herd want to achieve their immunity. They can take the easy way (vaccination) or the hard way (get Covid).
- flavius29663 5y ago
  far from it https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#national-lab https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#national-lab
- loceng 5y ago
  Vaccine isn't necessarily easy for everyone, and catching COVID isn't necessarily hard for everyone; and underlying health condition seems to be primary determinant of that, not vaccination status. Edit to add: feel good about downvoting critical thinking, ideologues.
  - xienze 5y ago
    > Vaccine isn't necessarily easy for everyone, and catching COVID isn't necessarily hard for everyone There seems to be this prevailing belief that Covid infection == near certain death, when that's just not the case, but try explaining that...
  - bena 5y ago
    That seems like the stupidest lottery to enter into however. Even people without an "underlying health condition" have died. And even those who haven't died are experiencing long term complications from having had COVID. So you can either hope you don't have a hard time with COVID if you catch it. Or you can drastically reduce your chances of having a hard time and of catching it all by just taking a couple minutes out of your day to get vaccinated. Sorry, while I do like to gamble in general, if the penalties include death and/or permanent disability, I'm going with the option that makes that less likely. Which is the vaccine.
    - VBprogrammer 5y ago
iamtheworstdev 5y ago
It's unachievable in the US. Not enough people willing to get vaccinated. The bar for herd immunity is predicted at 80% or higher if covid keeps mutating to become more infectious. Measles had a 95% herd immunity threshold so who knows where covid could finally land.
- giantg2 5y ago
  So far 55% or so have been fully vaccinated. 83 million, or 25% of the population, is estimated by the CDC to have been infected. I would guess we are getting fairly close to 70%, but it's hard to say what the overlap between those two numbers is. If it's really as contagious as they say, then it's only a matter of time before we hit 80%. The issue will then be the distribution by location and how long the protection lasts.
- akiselev 5y ago
  Measles is one of the most infectious pathogens known to man with an R0 between 10 and 15. Even with the delta variant, COVID doesn't seem as transmissible so the threshold should be closer to 80 than 95.
  - threatofrain 5y ago
    The overwhelming majority of children in the US receive the MMR jab either due to public school pressure or immigration policy. It is unlikely that COVID vaccination will ever reach the same levels, despite sufficient abundance of vaccine supply to play vaccine diplomacy around the world. Meanwhile we have Australia deploying the military to enforce acute lockdowns because they failed to secure enough vaccines early on.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      They are talking about mandatory vaccinations for some schools.
      - threatofrain 5y ago
ummonk 5y ago
We seem to be trying to "flatten the curve" and "slow the spread" to needlessly take extra long to get to the same final place - natural herd immunity.
- bena 5y ago
  Come on. It's because when we were trying to flatten the curve, there were far too many people who denied it was anything more serious than the flu and didn't take any precautions. Same with slowing the spread. People did not listen. Because they were "free critical thinkers who can reach their own conclusions thank you very much". And they were wrong. And now they've put us here.
  - xienze 5y ago
    > there were far too many people who denied it was anything more serious than the flu and didn't take any precautions. Well apparently quite a number of people must have taken precautions, because that's the explanation for why the flu has basically disappeared off the face of the earth.
    - bena 5y ago
      The flu is far less contagious than COVID. Even small measures affect the numbers.
      - xienze 5y ago
        Who knew after decades of administering flu vaccines that all it took to eradicate the flu was half-assedly wearing cotton face masks?
        bena 5y ago
        And more hand washing, and more distancing, etc. Because, like I said, the flu is far less contagious.
  - 5y ago
ekster 5y ago
Isn’t that what is happening? I was just in the US for a couple weeks (Portland, OR) and rules were minimal and optional everywhere. Not the kind of thing that would drive mental health issues, as best I could tell.
- notJim 5y ago
  That can't possibly be right, according to Fox News, Portland, OR is an authoritarian communist hellhole. Just glad you got out alive.
  - kbelder 5y ago
    It's a communist hellhole, but it's not authoritarian.
  - ekster 5y ago
    Portland has a lot of problems compared to the last time I was there five years ago, but it's not in quarantine lockdown or anything like that.

brianwawok 5y ago

I wouldn't say we are shooting for it, but it looks like we are heading that direction.

SavantIdiot 5y ago

The US doesn't have a choice to shoot for herd immunity because the remaining willfully unvaccinated population is both anti-mask and anti-vax. EDIT: Guess I worded that badly. What I mean is: choosing herd immunity is inevitable, so there is no choice. It will happen. EDIT2: It didn't occur to me that there is a huge risk if more deadly mutations happen faster than herd immunity.

carnitas 5y ago
That means they will be infected and subsequently immune, boosting herd immunity
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
wusher 5y ago
Herd immunity can also be achieved by the anti-vax people catching the virus. They can develop immunity by being sick instead of getting a shot.
- SavantIdiot 5y ago
  Exactly. That's my point. It is unavoidable.
  - Animats 5y ago
    We can hope. Some people have already become ill from COVID more than once.[1] This is rare, but it happens. Immunity from vaccination seems to be stronger than immunity from having the disease, but it's too early to be sure. How long vaccine immunity lasts is an open question. So far, it's at least N months, where N is how long the vaccines have been in wide use. Beyond that is speculation. [1] https://www.brgeneral.org/news-blog/2021/july/can-i-get-covid-more-than-once-/ https://www.brgeneral.org/news-blog/2021/july/can-i-get-covi...
    - criticaltinker 5y ago
      > Immunity from vaccination seems to be stronger than immunity from having the disease, but it's too early to be sure Unless anyone can cite peer-reviewed sources that indicate otherwise, there doesn't appear to be any conclusive evidence on this point. In fact these publications provide evidence that naturally acquired immunity is just as effective as vaccination [1][2] ([2] hasn't been peer-reviewed yet). > How long vaccine immunity lasts is an open question. So far, it's at least N months, where N is how long the vaccines have been in wide use. Beyond that is speculation. I'm interested in recent peer-reviewed literature supporting this point, and would be grateful if anyone could share links. [1] SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived bone marrow plasma cells in humans https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4.pdf [2] Necessity of COVID-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v3.full.pdf https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v...
- sjg007 5y ago
  Along with an accompanying crush of ICU hospitalizations and deaths.
  - mrhands69 5y ago
    Why haven't we spent time bolstering healthcare then? Why have all the field hospitals been destroyed as fast as they were put up?
    - amalter 5y ago
      We don't have enough doctors and nurses to staff the ICU beds bolted to the floors of the hospital. Those field hospitals are surge capacity; and work with hurricanes and earthquakes where a single part of the country is affected. You can bring in volunteers and reservists from other areas to create capacity. When the emergency is everywhere, and on-going, all of your surge capacity is gone.
      - mrhands69 5y ago
        The emergency has been everywhere and ongoing for almost 2 years now. At what point do they make an effort and the government says "Hey, let's permanently bolster our hospital systems. We'll hire X amount of 'surge' staff, create X amount of 'surge' beds". But we don't do that. Instead we act surprised every time there's a surge, the media feeds off it and everyone starts infighting. I'm not convinced hospital capacity is really the problem people say it is.
        sjg007 5y ago
        You need to train more doctors first. That’s the issue.
    - logifail 5y ago
      > Why have all the field hospitals been destroyed as fast as they were put up? Take your pick from: a) They were a bit of a PR gimmick? Better for gov't to be seen to do _something_ than standing around wringing your hands and hoping things will improve...? b) They couldn't be staffed and equipped to provide appropriate and useful additional care? c) General hospitals were perhaps not quite as close to being overwhelmed as was reported? There were stories that German hospitals may have been slightly economical with the truth in terms of obtaining additional funding for ICU beds, which perhaps weren't needed or even ever created[0] [0] https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/corona-hilfen-schummelei-1-3-millionen-fuer-intensivbetten-kassiert-aber-wo-stehen-sie-a-00000000-0002-0001-0000-000175304170 https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/corona-hilfen-schummelei-1-3...
- jampekka 5y ago
  Or catching the virus and being more or less asymptomatic.
- paulmd 5y ago
  You can reach herd immunity on any one strain - but as we've seen, the virus can mutate faster than we can reach herd immunity. The arrival of delta (and the other four or five major strains) signal that that theory flat-out will not work, the virus is mutating faster than we are reaching herd immunity. By the time we actually reach full herd immunity, we will have strains that the vaccine only provides significantly diminished protection against - we are arguably already getting there with Delta.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
azth 5y ago
> because the remaining willfully unvaccinated population is both anti-mask and anti-vax. That's not quite true. I know people who are not anti-vax, nor anti-mask, but they have an aversion to a new untested vaccine.

kzrdude 5y ago

Herd immunity (through vaccines) was always the goal, but I guess that's not what you mean?

rowland66 5y ago

The US is absolutely shooting for herd immunity now. Its just a question of how individual members of the herd want to achieve their immunity. They can take the easy way (vaccination) or the hard way (get Covid).

flavius29663 5y ago
far from it https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#national-lab https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#national-lab
loceng 5y ago
Vaccine isn't necessarily easy for everyone, and catching COVID isn't necessarily hard for everyone; and underlying health condition seems to be primary determinant of that, not vaccination status. Edit to add: feel good about downvoting critical thinking, ideologues.
- xienze 5y ago
  > Vaccine isn't necessarily easy for everyone, and catching COVID isn't necessarily hard for everyone There seems to be this prevailing belief that Covid infection == near certain death, when that's just not the case, but try explaining that...
- bena 5y ago
  That seems like the stupidest lottery to enter into however. Even people without an "underlying health condition" have died. And even those who haven't died are experiencing long term complications from having had COVID. So you can either hope you don't have a hard time with COVID if you catch it. Or you can drastically reduce your chances of having a hard time and of catching it all by just taking a couple minutes out of your day to get vaccinated. Sorry, while I do like to gamble in general, if the penalties include death and/or permanent disability, I'm going with the option that makes that less likely. Which is the vaccine.
  - VBprogrammer 5y ago

iamtheworstdev 5y ago

It's unachievable in the US. Not enough people willing to get vaccinated. The bar for herd immunity is predicted at 80% or higher if covid keeps mutating to become more infectious. Measles had a 95% herd immunity threshold so who knows where covid could finally land.

giantg2 5y ago
So far 55% or so have been fully vaccinated. 83 million, or 25% of the population, is estimated by the CDC to have been infected. I would guess we are getting fairly close to 70%, but it's hard to say what the overlap between those two numbers is. If it's really as contagious as they say, then it's only a matter of time before we hit 80%. The issue will then be the distribution by location and how long the protection lasts.
akiselev 5y ago
Measles is one of the most infectious pathogens known to man with an R0 between 10 and 15. Even with the delta variant, COVID doesn't seem as transmissible so the threshold should be closer to 80 than 95.
- threatofrain 5y ago
  The overwhelming majority of children in the US receive the MMR jab either due to public school pressure or immigration policy. It is unlikely that COVID vaccination will ever reach the same levels, despite sufficient abundance of vaccine supply to play vaccine diplomacy around the world. Meanwhile we have Australia deploying the military to enforce acute lockdowns because they failed to secure enough vaccines early on.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    They are talking about mandatory vaccinations for some schools.
    - threatofrain 5y ago

ummonk 5y ago

We seem to be trying to "flatten the curve" and "slow the spread" to needlessly take extra long to get to the same final place - natural herd immunity.

bena 5y ago
Come on. It's because when we were trying to flatten the curve, there were far too many people who denied it was anything more serious than the flu and didn't take any precautions. Same with slowing the spread. People did not listen. Because they were "free critical thinkers who can reach their own conclusions thank you very much". And they were wrong. And now they've put us here.
- xienze 5y ago
  > there were far too many people who denied it was anything more serious than the flu and didn't take any precautions. Well apparently quite a number of people must have taken precautions, because that's the explanation for why the flu has basically disappeared off the face of the earth.
  - bena 5y ago
    The flu is far less contagious than COVID. Even small measures affect the numbers.
    - xienze 5y ago
      Who knew after decades of administering flu vaccines that all it took to eradicate the flu was half-assedly wearing cotton face masks?
      - bena 5y ago
        And more hand washing, and more distancing, etc. Because, like I said, the flu is far less contagious.
- 5y ago

ekster 5y ago

Isn’t that what is happening? I was just in the US for a couple weeks (Portland, OR) and rules were minimal and optional everywhere. Not the kind of thing that would drive mental health issues, as best I could tell.

notJim 5y ago
That can't possibly be right, according to Fox News, Portland, OR is an authoritarian communist hellhole. Just glad you got out alive.
- kbelder 5y ago
  It's a communist hellhole, but it's not authoritarian.
- ekster 5y ago
  Portland has a lot of problems compared to the last time I was there five years ago, but it's not in quarantine lockdown or anything like that.