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لا يمكن لمناعة القطيع هزيمة فيروس كوفيد 19

Oct 2, 2020 William A. Haseltine

نيويورك - خلال حدث على غرار "لقاء قاعة المدينة" على شبكة إي بي سي الإخبارية في 15 سبتمبر/ أيلول، أخبر الرئيس الأمريكي دونالد ترامب المضيف جورج ستيفانوبولوس أنه رغم غياب لقاح فعال، فإن فيروس كورونا المُستجد "سيختفي". وفقًا لترامب، مع مرور الوقت "سنتمكن من تطوير القطيع - مثل عقلية القطيع. سيكون الأمر كذلك - سيتم تطوير القطيع، وهذا ما سيحدث بلا شك".

ما كان يُشير إليه ترامب، وأطلق عليه اسمًا خاطئًا، هو مناعة القطيع، والتي يُطورها السكان عندما يُصاب معظم الأفراد بالعدوى أو يتم تطعيمهم ضد عدوى معينة بحيث يمنع جدار المقاومة انتشار العدوى. ومع ذلك، استناداً إلى افتراض أن "مناعة القطيع ستحدث حتماً بغض النظر عما إذا تم تطوير لقاح أم لا"، فإن صياغة سياسات للاستجابة للأوبئة ستسمح للفيروس بإصابة الأفراد دون أي عائق. كان هذا هو الحال في السويد، حيث رفض صناع السياسة تطبيق سياسات الإغلاق ووقف الأنشطة التجارية لصالح المزيد من النصائح المُتساهلة بشأن ارتداء الأقنعة وممارسة التباعد الاجتماعي.

بعد تنفيذ هذه التدابير، ليس من المستغرب أن السويد أصبحت واحدة من البلدان التي لديها أعلى معدلات الإصابة والوفيات المرتبطة بفيروس كورونا المُستجد. علاوة على ذلك، انكمش الاقتصاد السويدي بنسبة 8.6٪ في الربع الثاني من عام 2020 مقارنة بالأشهر الثلاثة السابقة. نظرًا إلى أن العديد من مؤيدي مناعة القطيع يؤكدون على الحاجة إلى إنعاش النمو الاقتصادي، فإن الانكماش الاقتصادي في السويد هو نتيجة مهمة يجب أخذها بعين الاعتبار. سكوت أتلاس هو أحد مؤيدي مناعة القطيع، وهو مستشار البيت الأبيض في علم الأوبئة الذي تم تعيينه حديثًا لدى ترامب والذي أيد النموذج السويدي المزعوم على قناة فوكس نيوز.

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admin Oct 20, 2020

If herd immunity doesn't matter for covid (which goes against the studies showing otherwise but whatever) then how would a vaccine help?
Vaccines never give as much immunity as you get from a natural immune response to a real infection. Maybe this is why the FDA recently decided the vaccine did not need to be more than 30% effective to get approved.
Let's face it, this all has nothing to do with a virus, ok. It is about the NWO.
If we cared so much about people dying then we would immediately shut down all polluting industries which kill a total of 5-6m people per year globally.
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Gerald Silverberg Oct 4, 2020

"If the US fatality rate remained what it is now – close to 3%"

This is the case fatality rate, not the infection fatality rate. About 5 to 10 times more people have been infected with sars-CoV-2 than are confirmed cases, depending on the extent of testing, as revealed by sero surveys. Thus the infection fatality rate is estimated to be 0.5-1%. That would still imply 1-2 million deaths before achieving herd immunity, if that is even possible, although some models conclude that the herd immunity thresholds might be much lower due to heterogeneity in susceptibility. (A recent sero survey of Manaus, Brazil, indicates that over 60% of the population has already been infected, however, without the epidemic completely disappearing, so the threshold may well be higher.)

Another overlooked factor is that epidemics do not simply end when the herd immunity threshold is reached, but rather the new infection rate just starts slowing down. In fact they will considerably overshoot this threshold before coming to a standstill.
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Kurt Kristensen Oct 3, 2020

Economically the global costs and disruptions due to the top down response models chosen by most governments and world health organizations have been astronomical by any historical comparison; government budgets have been overdrawn, and as a result investment choices in future projects will be very limited.

Global trading and travel plans have been curtailed or severely limited, and both commercial and private purchasing has moved on-line, leaving behind closed or significantly reduced local employment neighborhoods.

In schools children and teachers are trying to adapt to the 'new normal' wearing oxygen-depriving masks, and leaving each day fearful of the long-term impact to their physical and mental health.

Regional and national health authorities are issuing escalating warnings about fatality rates and urging everyone to be receptive to taking annual vaccinations for both the 'old' annual flue plus the 'new' Covid Flue.

The respected peer-reviewed New England Journal of Medicine, according to the Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Children's Health Defense organization, has published a "Strategy for States on how to mandate Covid-19 vaccines that, apparently has lead authors with compromised research funding backgrounds. Many readers tend to lend credence to Mr. Kennedy's assertion that "This article is a revealing — and horrifying — blueprint for Pharma’s imposition of mandates that could require hundreds of millions of reluctant Americans to submit to a risky medical procedure with poorly-tested, ineffective, zero-liability vaccines,” said Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., chairman of Children’s Health Defense."

The average person is overwhelmed with conflicting information, the public is approaching a 50% rejection level of all of the 'Warp-Speed" developed Covid vaccines, and people are increasingly suspicious of even their own mainstream medical providers.

Alternative practitioners are experiencing a renaissance, and the families are increasingly looking at taking more responsibility for their own healthcare. Some researchers are finding favorable indications that all pulmonary diseases respond positively to high D3 and high Vitamin C support.

The mixed polical-pharma-mainstream medical message that the new normal's only recourse must be years of risky and costly, additional vaccinations along with massive unemployment, under-employment, remote education and home offices does not appear to be supported as the only course of action the public will accept.

Compulsory mandates for vaccines that, as their design parameters indicate, will only have a 50% efficacy should be carefully reconsidered in favor of, perhaps, a broader front of initiatives that, over time, may allow us a better 'new normal.'

In the meantime, perhaps, ethically, and economically, it would be prudent to re-examine, globally, how our model of care for the elderly appear to be the cause of the majority of all Covid-related fatalities. Surely we can afford a gentler and robust care system for all our parents, everywhere.

The arguments about 'herd immunity' vs. mandated vaccines is not a productive public discussion. Allowing many methodologies and individual approaches has always been the American way.
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Paul Akhurst Oct 3, 2020

It is probably too early to say whether or not herd immunity can be achieved and at what cost. What we do know is that Covid-19 killed a disproportionally high number of older people, especially amongst those in care homes and that many nations were slow to respond to this (e.g. UK, Australia, Sweden). What we also know is that those countries that acted with unity and purpose (e.g. Sweden, New Zealand, Australia [even with Melbourne’s problems]) have been far more successful in bring Coronavirus/Covid-19 under control and returning to something resembling normal life. There may be no single and ideal response to Covid-19 other than good leadership, something that has clearly been missing in those countries with poor results (e.g. USA, UK, Brazil).
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Michael Public Oct 3, 2020

South Africa developed herd immunity. Initially, the longest lockdown of any nation did nothing to slow the virus because compliance was poor to non-existent, especially in the poorer communities (90% of the population) who live in cramped conditions and have limited understanding of microbes and hygiene.

The national population is about 60m of which half live in the cities. Actual Covid infections high-low estimate was 19m-13m. (This was reverse engineered by data scientists at Discovery Health - the main private medical insurance scheme - they use excess natural deaths as the baseline figure. Tested-to infection ratios are now well established).

One day, for no good reason, the curve just dropped and plummeted to nothing. The reason is that most of the super spreaders - like taxi drivers (16 passengers squeezed in a minibus!) - have already had covid-19. In other words the figure for South Africa was about 50% of a city population must have had it to cause herd immunity. That figure will differ for different countries. Note: the tested figure is normally 10 or 20 times lower than the actual infections for reasons well understood.

To extrapolate to the US where 83% live in cities and there are 7m tested cases the real infections should be about 10 times thatm, you are then at near 30% of the city populations having been infected. Based on this and adjusting a bit for cultural factors I would say that the US has reached or is close to herd immunity.

Scientists have proven that both idiots and chimpanzees tend to be right 50% of the time.

Of course, new strains may develop that ignore previous immunity - that has not happened yet.
- Lester Soss Oct 3, 2020
  
  Mr Public's argument about herd immunity sounds similar to those of Rand Paul and the Hoover Institute's Atlas. The problem is that Dr. Fauci effectively dismissed Paul's premises during the congressional hearings, and Atlas's colleagues at Stanford Medical School wrote an open letter that emphasized their disagreement with Atlas's analysis. An analysis, by the way that has many of the same points made by another Hooverite, Epstein, who wrote and then revised his writing several times that the death rate would never exceed 500, and then 5000, and yet again (last thing published), 50,000.
  
  A report just came out of Europe that made two important points. Using the "excess" death rate mentioned by Mr. Public, it noted first that the number of covid deaths was under-counted. The second was that the mortality rate from the virus was 3%. Now Mr. Public writes that herd immunity occurs when 30% of the population has been infected. He further asserts that we have reached that level. Which means that 70 million people have been infected. But if the death rate is 3%, then there should be 2.1 million dead. We have "only" 210,000. So, that would mean that the mortality rate is much lower than 3%, more like 0.28%. Now this is higher than the estimated 0.1% seasonal flu deaths, but those deaths occur in a population where the transmission rate is significantly lowered by mass vaccination. Furthermore, even at 0.1%, the US registered 34,157 dead for 2018-2019 season. The covid numbers are already 6 times that, which would imply that the 0.28% should be 0.6%.
  
  Also, if you look at the CDC data, the ratio of those tested to confirmed cases continues to go down. But that obviously implies that the rates of infection are going up. But how does that occur if you have reached the mythical herd immunity level.
  
  It seems to me that the right- wing has made a cynical calculation that because the majority dying are either elderly or minority, that it isn't worth the cost to the economy to save their lives. However, they can't say that so we have the Rand Paul's and Atlas's spouting nonsense.
  
  The problem of course is that the right wing's basic premise is wrong. As many have pointed out on these pages, the economy will not right itself until this pandemic is subdued either through social means or biological.
  - Michael Public Oct 4, 2020
    
    @Lester - Straw man. I have never heard read anything from Atlas or Rand Paul and I don't read right-wing websites as a rule. I am just applying logic, some facts I have, and some calculations to draw a tentative conclusion. Anthony Fauci is not God (or the evolutionary force) and so cannot decide unilaterally what is possible. There are major risks both ways. If you go into perpetual lockdown there is a cost associated - economic, lives, geopolitical or whatever.
    - Lester Soss Oct 4, 2020
      
      If you listen to Trump's blathering at his press conference, you will hear Atlas-he is Trump's newest doctor following the party line (after the last doctors disqualified themselves when they began ranting about alien DNA). In terms of Rand Paul, you don't need to listen to Fox News to hear his position, he gave it at the recent congressional hearings. That's where Fauci pushed back hard and noted that everything Paul has said has been wrong.
      
      So, it's not a matter making Fauci a god, but rather listening to what he, as the representative of science, says. If you like, go to Nial Fergueson of the UK, or Ashish Jha of Brown, or Dr Gupta of Washington, or...etc,
      
      I don't know what you based your conclusions on, but I tried to base mine on the simple math calculations that I presented in my post. I'm not saying that I'm right, but I do try to be consistent.
      
      As I see it, you have three basic variables:
      (1) percentage of the population that must be infected (and recover) to achieve herd immunity.
      (2) The mortality or death rate.
      (3) The number who have died.
      Whatever model you develop, the numbers you give in those three categories must jive. If you have 100 people infected and 30 die, and you claim that you have a 10% mortality rate, you have problem with your model!
      
      The worst part of the Trumpian criminal enterprise, has been its constant assault on science and the public health agencies. I understand why they do it; after all, if no one believes in global warming, then no one will seek to constrain the oil companies. But just for a moment think through what this will mean. When the world scientific community develops a vaccine, you will have sizable percentage of the population who will not take it. What will this mean for the economy?
      
      And, by the way, the alternative is not to open the economy or keep it shut down. Rather it is to open it safely.
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- Paul Akhurst Oct 3, 2020
  
  It has not yet be proven whether or not South Africa has reached herd immunity, it is a possibility but still under investigation. It has also been suggested (but not proven) that the high rates of poverty and over-crowded slums contributed to South African’s having a degree of “natural” immunity to Covid-19 due to previous exposure to a wide range coronaviruses. Surely you are not suggesting that the solution to Covid-19 is that we all go and live in extreme poverty and slums?
  - Michael Public Oct 4, 2020
    
    @Paul. I am not suggesting that as is clear from my post.
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Michael Public Oct 3, 2020

But that is completely different virus. If they had anything in common we would have a pandemic every winter.
- Paul Akhurst Oct 3, 2020
  
  The Covid-19 causing Coronavirus is not a “completely different” virus. It is a different virus within the Coronavirus group of viruses. Therefore until we have better information it is reasonable to assume that this coronavirus will behave similarly to other coronaviruses and to change our behavior as more knowledge becomes available. For example it was rapidly established that Covid-19 causes more incidents of serious illness and death than the coronavirus that causes the common cold. Therefore, a more intense response (e.g. lockdown) was, and remains, appropriate.
  - Michael Public Oct 4, 2020
    
    The grouping refers to their biochemical makeup - not their behavior in populations. Other coronaviruses showed long immunity. You cannot extrapolate.
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Gerry Hofman Oct 2, 2020

It seems to be a bit of a thing to use Sweden as a negative example and frankly, i just get sick of that. The Swedish toll is in fact less than that of a lot of other countries that went straight into hard, panic driven lockdowns. The Swedes have a level of trust in their government unknown in the US and achieved better results than the UK without the extra policing, restrictive legislation, confusing directions that change every two weeks and massive personal fines disrupting people's lives there.
The Swedish approach is based on voluntary acceptance of the government's directions and that's the thing that authoritive govs like the UK have a problem with. They don't do voluntary.
They have better results that the US because the Swedish government speaks with one voice and that is something the people in United States will not live to see happen in their country . Chaos and confusion they do sow and chaos and confusion they will reap, surprisingly.
The problem in Sweden was the failure to protect people in aged care homes, just like in Italy right in the beginning of the pandemic, and just like in Australia just recently, where nearly half of deaths occurred in the age care homes that were left relatively unprotected by their federal government. Nothing much has been learned, there.
There is no such thing as herd immunity with Covid as it will likely come around in waves every few years, just like the flu. And that means, it cannot be eradicated either. We will just have to live with it.
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