Is there high level of immunity amongst the YOLO set? I think that’s a valid question. It is NOT herd. Herd implies we can all YOLO and those who have no immunity are protected. If all of those that have been careful started eating in restaurants im certain we would have a surge.
I’m not sure how to explain the drop. There may be some seasonality, remember it didn’t really take off last year until nowish and it had no masks or social distancing in January 2020.
The interesting thing is that it’s happening most everywhere at the same time.
They haven’t yet developed their own and have been waiting in line for Pfizer’s.
There have been logistical issues in securing the required refrigeration and vial equipment (different standard here).
They have been more rigorous about testing the vaccine independently before unleashing it on the public and slower and more deliberate in developing home-grown ones.
And because compared with the U.S. and most of the world COVID spread here has, at least until recently, been relatively tame, there was less urgency to rush out a vaccine.
Every person removed from the contagion chain - whether through social isolation, n95 mask-wearing, vaccination, or required COVID - reduces the real-world and maximum R0 of disease spread. You can nitpick the term “partial herd immunity” if you want, but exponential growth is hampered by a reduction in the vectors for that growth.
I really don’t want to do this again. But of course it does at some point.
Let’s say 30% of the people already had covid, 10% are vaccinated, and 40% are still isolating. That’s 20% of the population left for the virus to plow through - maybe not enough population density to keep R over 1. That 30% who already had it could be the difference in R over 1 or under 1.
This is just a hypothetical - not saying it matches US #s.
A second spike could still come when people who are isolating get complacent. Or a new variant. Or immunity from the sickness wears off. If none of those things happen it may have a hard time.
By your logic if we’re 1% under herd immunity we’re still in danger of just as big of a spike as if we’re at zero immunity. Obviously that’s not the case. There’s a point at which the amount of people previously infected matters. Otherwise instead of a smooth top, the case spike would just end and immediately go to zero.
And we’ve all established what we’re talking about here. We’re just talking about the % of people who have recovered from covid and have immunity. Nothing more. It’s functionally the same as the % of people who have been fully vaccinated - at least until immunity starts to wear off.
Right - if the 40% or w/e who are still isolating YOLO it tomorrow - we absolutely get a spike.
Exponential math works one way. That some point where transmission is meaningfully affected is much higher than what we’ve achieved, and it’s an extremely small window.
And you’re consistently overgeneralizing, which is why you keep getting challenged. Reducing disease vectors via short-term immunity doesn’t necessarily reduce the total number of infected in the long-term, but it absolutely and immediately starts to reduce the rate of transmission and subsequently flattens case curves.
Sure but none of that changes what basic terms in medicine mean. Herd immunity means a specific thing. Partial herd immunity doesn’t exist in any meaningful way. Exponential math simply doesn’t allow it
See that’s the whole point, this effect is super small.
Herd immunity = 1-1/R0 has profound implications for this discussion.
The consequences of the math being exponential makes this effect extremely small until it suddenly stops being small. It’s not a linear effect.
What is being talked about here is mostly temporary measures that lower R0. The lowering of the R0 isn’t coming from the virus being blocked by running into immune people.
I defer to your expertise here, but to what would you owe the striking decrease in cases if not for the effects of increasing immunity in the population? People making large scale changes in behavior? Some other non-understood factor(s)?
I can’t answer that question yet. Data doesn’t exist to answer it. We can guess at a few things, but it isn’t herd immunity in any meaningful way unless the R0 is way off from what we thought it is… and we actually think the baseline R0 is up given the new variants.
I’d say it’s a rickety stool of several factors with sub populations of people with risky behavior having enough immunity to limit superspreader events as long as they stay in the risky behavior group for interactions. (Masking, social distancing, less holiday gatherings, possibly weather/seasonality) being other supports for our stool. Any failure of any support and we are on our asses.
It’s not like R has not gone to 0. It’s probably 0.8-0.9 ish. Infection is still sustained at a large number. In herd immunity, infection that does get re-introduced burns out rapidly.
Yah just spitballing reasons why in my area things have fallen off a cliff, and I have a tough time attributing it to a massive shift in personal behavior. We are vaxxing bigly around here, it’s a frozen wasteland so nobody can survive outdoors so that isn’t it. Can’t really come up with any other factors aside from the virus is taking a little snooze. Def not complaining!