Herd immunity usually takes about 67% or greater of the population to be effective. I don’t think any location has come near that number.
Edited to correct the number. It’s basically 67% or higher, not 80%. My bad.
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Heard Immunity does occur naturally. There’s a reason why people gradually stopped dying from the Spanish flu.
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NORM!
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Ok then all the blather about Doing it Swedish Style is just blather which is exactly what I thought.
It’s just a nicer way of saying: let’s sacrifice granny and the weak ones to the economy. I.E. Nazi Utilitarianism.
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Spanish flu morphed into seasonal flu, never built up immunity, it just became less deadly. Viruses that kill their hosts too often are inefficient and die out for lack of hosts, unless they adapt.
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OK, no heard immunity, no vaccine, no anti-viral. Now what? Personally, I think the tendency towards doomsday scenarios are getting a bit out of hand.
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Why wasn’t I told about this? (adjusts hearing aid)
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See @castor_troy’s comment just above yours. It really isn’t hopeless.
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This article is being widely misintepreted.
There is no scientific evidence that antibodies provide immunity. There is also no scientific evidence that antibodies don’t provide immunity. What the WHO is doing is being very scientific about this: until there is scientific evidence, you can not and should not assume anything. They are not making any definitive declarations, and they are, in turn, asking that policy makers not making any policy decisions that assume antibody immunity.
They are being deliberate and careful about their language, and the public is twisting it up.
“At this point in the pandemic, there is not enough evidence about the effectiveness of antibody-mediated immunity to guarantee the accuracy of an ‘immunity passport’ or ‘risk-free certificate,'” WHO’s brief concluded.
“People who assume that they are immune to a second infection because they have received a positive test result may ignore public health advice. The use of such certificates may therefore increase the risks of continued transmission. As new evidence becomes available, WHO will update this scientific brief.”
AKA: Don’t put the cart before the horses. Until we know, or don’t, in the name of science, assuming nothing. That is the point WHO is making today. That is all.
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In the absence of a vaccine, the way we avoid doomsday is continued social distancing, massive testing, and full contact tracing until the R0 (“R naught”) is less than one. That’s the point where on average, each infected person is transmitting to less than one other person. Details here:
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You’re being quite the smarty pants today, aren’t you?
I think you’ve been spending too much time with @castor_troy…
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“There is currently no evidence that people who
have recovered from COVID-19previously voted for Chiselin’ Trump and haveantibodiesseen the incredible damage that he has done to our country are protected from casting a secondinfectionvote for Chiselin’ Trump.”
This, too.
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Right. So they can quit making plans based on that idea. Because right now there is no basis for the plans since they don’t know for certain that herd immunity even exists.
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Finally, a bonafide medical expert to the rescue! Thanks, and welcome @kuromahou.
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So if the stable genius isn’t going to hold any more press conferences 
, what’s he going to do all day? He’ll be back; he can’t stay away. It’s very gratifying to realize how utterly miserable he is and really has been throughout his “presidency.”
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There are any number of diseases for which exposure/infection does not give you a protective immune response but for which a vaccine does; tetanus being the most notable, though not best, example. The amount of tetanus toxin it takes to kill you is less than the amount it takes to immunize you, but tetanus toxoid (inactivated toxin) elicits a protective response. The point being, that in the case of virus and bacteria, they often give the immune system an irrelevant target to focus on while disguising what would be a protective antigen, A vaccine can target a specific antigen and present it in larger amounts than would normally be encountered in nature, free of the irrelevant antigens favored by the pathogen.
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Guilty as charged. Scheduled virtual confession with a priest at five today.
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Perhaps it’s worth pointing out that this won’t be a problem for most of the TPM commentariet. We already have turd immunity.
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