3 ms·
If twenty percent of the population has had covid, and fifty percent has been vaccinated, say we assume half of the twenty percent isn’t an overlap. Wouldn’t th
by YPCrumble 5y ago
If twenty percent of the population has had covid, and fifty percent has been vaccinated, say we assume half of the twenty percent isn’t an overlap. Wouldn’t that put us much closer to the herd immunity number of seventy percent than we’ve been thinking? And that if infections continue at a high pace, shouldn’t we reach that level very soon?
- raphlinus 5y agoThe idea of being at or near herd immunity has been pushed so many times since the start of this pandemic, and each time those hopes have been dashed. The threshold needed for herd immunity has been revised upward since the 70% figure was widely discussed. First, the R0 for the delta variant is almost certainly higher than for earlier variants. I am personally skeptical of claims in the 8 range, but they are widespread, especially by public health professionals, in contrast to, say, virologists, who tend to point to antigenic drift as a mechanism that could explain the rise in delta prevalence. Also, vaccine effectiveness is a factor in the herd immunity threshold, and that is also reduced a bit off earlier high estimates, partly because of variants and partly because of antibody waning. So my best guess is that herd immunity is now permanently out of reach. I'd love to be proved wrong on that, though.
- nradov 5y agoThe CDC estimates that 36% of Americans have been infected. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...