It tilts me that the lead headline is always “efficacy rate” and not “prevents hospitalization and death rate,” which is close to 100% for all of the vaccines, as I understand it.
People naturally see “76%” or whatever and think it just straight up doesn’t work 1/4 of the time, which is false and super harmful to getting hesitant morons vaccinated.
Really shows how much more contagious that covid is.
Looks like there are huge opportunities to cut flu every year. But of course we won’t.
There’s an opportunity to reduce flu, but not sure how large it is yet. Depends on how much mitigation came from sustainable interventions vs. more draconian ones.
How do you figure? The trends in the US as a whole are declining. The only time you can say for certain that we aren’t at herd just from looking at case trends is when cases are increasing, right?
I think you’re probably overestimating the ability of the median American to make a connection between “76%” and “a quarter of the time”.
Worthless without the positivity rate
Cases arent declining. At best we’ve plateaued. The 7 day US average was actually up yesterday and was at 57K (think I was looking at NY Times data). I dont think we will be generating 350K new cases a week at herd immunity.
A couple weeks ago something like 48 states were showing declines. Now we have something like 15 states on the upswing. Michigan the example that sticks out to me. Average cases have doubled in the last two weeks and the case count looks like the hundreds of other exponential growth curves we’ve seen over the last year plus in various places. Variants are likely a factor given what we’ve seen happen elsewhere.
So, to me, it is very hard to look at flat case numbers in the 300K plus a week range with more areas returning to case growth and argue we are at herd immunity.
Michigan 7 day average cases troughed at 1,030 on 2/21. 7 day average now 3,719. Positivity rate has moved from around 3.5%-4% to 10%.
Hopefully not as deadly of a surge this go round as we continue to vaccinate, but seems pretty likely there is another wave around the corner.
If the vaccines don’t necessarily stop transmission, but do result in less serious cases and less death, shouldn’t we move on to using hospitalizations and death rates as an indicator for the pandemic ending?
They almost certainly do, though.
Mother and boyfriend got Pfizer shot 1 scheduled.
She was set on getting it but her boyfriend really encouraged her to get it ASAP. Sister #1 + Boyfriend not getting it still. Sister #2 pretty pissed but is moving out soon so she’s given up on pushing them.
I’d argue yes, at some point, but not yet. That’s a different discussion then whether we have reached herd immunity though.
EDIT: oh missed one thing, yeah, to echo above vaccines do almost certainly help stop transmission. I dont think we are going to get true herd immunity, but that isnt because vaccinated people are spreading COVID.
Flu spreads like wildfire in the schools. That’s the vector every flu season. Schools were closed. This isn’t a huge mystery. We need to reopen schools eventually though so flu’s gonna come back. Should probably make schoolkids stay masked i guess but that probably won’t happen either.
Right, just looking at the Michigan graph you can say “not herd”. New York, probably not. But the California, Texas and Florida graphs? You can’t say. And if there is another wave it will be interesting to see how the mortality and hospitalization rate is impacted with so many of the elderly vaccinated.
Is there any reason to expect states besides Michigan would be closer to herd immunity than Michigan is?
Besides like 2-3 exceptions, we are looking at nearly identical previous infection and immunization rates across all the states.
Also, if your numbers have plateaued with major mitigation still in place (forget restaurants–millions of people are still working from home and decreasing activity significantly, and mask wearing is ultra common in many public places) then you categorically are NOT at herd immunity.
Flu has also been close to non existent here in France where schools have been mostly open since last May.
Cant definitively rule it out just based on case numbers. Would say the chances they are at herd immunity in practice astronomically low.
I do have some hope that this wave wont be as devastating, even if it will be IMO the most senseless of all the waves.
