@trendless We're making it common. We're not making it a cold. Abundance of evidence from studies that even sub-acute "minor" infections may be taking a serious health toll on the population. The "hard numbers" studies these last few months showing cognitive impairment are particularly scary to me.
@trendless “Herd immunity” is being misused. It is “how much of the population needs to be vaccinated so that those who refuse or can’t are an insignificant number and the illness is stopped. “
For instance, “herd immunity against measles requires about 95% of a population to be vaccinated. The remaining 5% will be protected by the fact that measles will not spread among those who are vaccinated. For polio, the threshold is about 80%.”
@CStamp I agree it's being misused in myriad ways. Immunity is a very complex subject that public health comms seem never to adequately explain. One of the biggest problems with a coronavirus compared to something like polio or measles is that immunity to disease caused by a coronavirus -- whether induced by vaccine or infection -- wanes orders of magnitude quicker than the latter. Aiming for herd immunity to stop the spread of SARS-CoV-2 was a sham from the very beginning.
@trendless I think it was deliberately misused by the anti-vaxers. I remember learning about herd immunity in junior high, when they gave boosters in schools.
The alternative is deliberately allowing a chunk of population to die off in hopes that survivors are genetically superior with regards to a specific illness, which is barbaric, but right-wing today...
@CStamp I agree that entities like the Brownstone Institute and others who were proponents of the Great Barrington Declaration, as well as the politicians and other so-called experts who used them as cover for their eugenicist aims, deliberately misused the concept of herd immunity. However, WHO and CDC also incorrectly posited that herd immunity could be used to defeat SARS-CoV-2. The article I linked in the original post is from years before the current pandemic began and I doubt it's the first piece of literature on the subject as it relates to coronaviruses. The current Let It Rip policies that basically every country has resorted to regardless the leaning of their government are everything that the OG deniers -- those who called both COVID and vaccines a hoax from day one -- could have hoped for, eugenics and all. The only way out -- and imo the only ethical, moral choice -- is to individually and collectively do everything we can to stop those infected with SARS-CoV-2 from being able to transmit it to others, using all the layers in this graphic:
@trendless
The vaccines are highly effective.
Paxlovid is highly effective.
We haven't eliminated Covid, but we haven't eliminated measles, malaria, or polio either.
@Okanogen The vaccines are neither highly effective at preventing infection nor transmission. And yet, nearly everyone has foolishly given up on non-pharmaceutical interventions. The policy now is to let it rip. So, let's maybe temper the urge to celebrate. Saying we haven't eliminated measles, malaria or polio is drawing a false equivalence. Do we let those bugs freely circulate, as we do with covid? Do people falsely claim they're "mild" and "over," as they do with covid?
> Human Coronaviruses and Other Respiratory Viruses: Underestimated Opportunistic Pathogens of the Central Nervous System? https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/12/1/14
Add comment