Right...... thinning Alabamians is a good thing. The nation's average IQ will rise substantially.
Seriously though while herd immunity is dismissed by so-called experts, the reading I've done on it is that there is such a thing, previously infected and recovered people contribute to it along with vaccinated people. Nobody seems to be talking about that but if 30% of state or city's population has already been infected and you start to approach a 30% vaccination rate, the combined immunity will absolutely start to impact new infection rates.
By some expert accounts a reported 10% infection rate reflects only a 1/3 of actual infections. There are some locals approaching or even exceeding that 10% infected rate. Back in June NYC was thought to have a 25% rate of infection. It is likely much higher than that now. Back in April, Miami's infection rate was thought to be approaching 10%. My view is that it probably is easily in the 20-30% range now, possibly higher than that. Both of these reports were based on university research that was sampling sero-prevalence - that data not being pulled out of someone's ass. What no one knows with certainty and won't know for years when we can look retrospectively at this, how long does immunity last? Early data with no consensus suggests at least 6 months and possibly as long as 1 year.
The point is that despite the hand ringing over the "surge," despite so called experts calling pandemic response strategies that purportedly seek herd immunity, it is a fact that increasing numbers of persons infected by SARS-2 contributes to an overall decline in susceptible hosts and should ultimately and at some point not too distant force a sharp decline in growth curves. Admittedly, the problem is increasing numbers of infections increase fatalities but CFR remains well below 2.0 (1.2- 1.5 by most accounts). At the same time survival rates are increasing at a modest rate due to improved care.
Seriously though while herd immunity is dismissed by so-called experts, the reading I've done on it is that there is such a thing, previously infected and recovered people contribute to it along with vaccinated people. Nobody seems to be talking about that but if 30% of state or city's population has already been infected and you start to approach a 30% vaccination rate, the combined immunity will absolutely start to impact new infection rates.
By some expert accounts a reported 10% infection rate reflects only a 1/3 of actual infections. There are some locals approaching or even exceeding that 10% infected rate. Back in June NYC was thought to have a 25% rate of infection. It is likely much higher than that now. Back in April, Miami's infection rate was thought to be approaching 10%. My view is that it probably is easily in the 20-30% range now, possibly higher than that. Both of these reports were based on university research that was sampling sero-prevalence - that data not being pulled out of someone's ass. What no one knows with certainty and won't know for years when we can look retrospectively at this, how long does immunity last? Early data with no consensus suggests at least 6 months and possibly as long as 1 year.
The point is that despite the hand ringing over the "surge," despite so called experts calling pandemic response strategies that purportedly seek herd immunity, it is a fact that increasing numbers of persons infected by SARS-2 contributes to an overall decline in susceptible hosts and should ultimately and at some point not too distant force a sharp decline in growth curves. Admittedly, the problem is increasing numbers of infections increase fatalities but CFR remains well below 2.0 (1.2- 1.5 by most accounts). At the same time survival rates are increasing at a modest rate due to improved care.
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