Herd immunity is not going to happen

TonyMaloney

I'll preface what I'm going to write by saying the vaccines remain extremely effective at reducing severe covid, hospitalisation and of course death. Get vaccinated.

This is a good definition of herd immunity from Wikipedia

Herd immunity (also called herd effect, community immunity, population immunity, or mass immunity) is a form of indirect protection from infectious disease that can occur with some diseases when a sufficient percentage of a population has become immune to an infection, whether through vaccination or previous infections, thereby reducing the likelihood of infection for individuals who lack immunity. Immune individuals are unlikely to contribute to disease transmission, disrupting chains of infection, which stops or slows the spread of disease. The greater the proportion of immune individuals in a community, the smaller the probability that non-immune individuals will come into contact with an infectious individual.

That is simply not going to occur due to delta (and potentially other variants), with our current vaccines.

Fully vaccinated people can and frequently will get infected. And they can and frequently will infect others in due course.

The herd immunity ship has sailed. If we don't update the vaccines and start to get them into everybody's arms all over again, then there is literally no chance of reaching herd immunity via vaccination.

It doesn't matter, from a herd immunity standpoint, whether a country gets to 80 or 90 percent of their population fully vaxxed. It's hugely important in terms of hospitalisation and death, but we are nowhere near herd immunity.

So my question is, how in the name of **** are we going to protect those that are non-immune now? I think acceptance of this has been really slow, though it is starting to sink in.

I've got no idea, other than starting again with a brand new vax. And I don't think that's going to be popular or if it's even doable.

i think we’ve known this for a few months now. We might get better results with boosters

Nozebleed

you still wont be sticking **** all in my arm..

snowcat

There is another problem to achieve herd immunity. Unlike measles smallpox , Covid also infects animals. So we would to vaccinate all animals as well andget them wearing marks also.

TonyMaloney

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117740416#Comment_117740416

Perhaps it's understood by many, but it certainly is not the prevailing view.

Boosters are no use to the immunocompromised, of which there are many

TonyMaloney

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117740431#Comment_117740431

I've no intention of sticking anything in any part of you

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117740480#Comment_117740480

What do you suggest? Back into lockdown? The vaccines are highly effective even for the immunocompromised and the vast majority of those in hospital/ICU now are the unvaccinated.

astrofool

I think people have a weird idea how fast herd immunity is meant to happen.

You get people vaccinated and reduce the R0 to below 1 and then wait a few weeks or months depending on the starting point.

The UK is fairly open and R0 with delta is between 0.8 and 1.1, as more get vaccinated and the remaining refusers catch it anyway, R0 will decrease and herd immunity will occur, after that it's looking at how long immunity lasts and monitoring breakouts.

But the idea that we would be there before enough people are vaccinated or using countries which didn't get the % vaccinated high enough (e.g. Israel stuck @ 60% for a few months) is laughable. It happens on it's own timescale, not ours.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117740502#Comment_117740502

This scenario at the moment may well be building up herd immunity massively on this island with reasonably low harms.

4,000 infections a day on the island and possibly 50,000-100,000 vaccine doses a day (1st and 2nd) with

Hospital numbers 500 compared to over 3,000 at peaks.

The fact that R is fairly close to 1 and many things are open and we have a current virus strain with an R of 6-8 shows we are making progress with regards to immunity in population and of living alongside the virus.

This is how governments look at this, they dont really care about the individual but the population and the economy as a whole.

I dont particulary like living this currently with such high levels of covid circulating but i know this wave is not going to last forever.

We must be close to 80% of total population with some sort of antibodies to covid (natural and vaccinated).

With every day immunity is building.

If i was playing one of those strategy games like age of empires i would say we are winning.

Not nice to live through day to day, but it is better from a population level basis with regards to deaths etc. per day.

TonyMaloney

Lads, as I said above - if the vaccinated can often be infected and spread the virus themselves, then the whole concept is out the window.

If we got to 90%+ vaccinated and locked down for three weeks, it would start to grow again and eventually reach the vulnerable.

That is not herd immunity, by definition

lucernarian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117740596#Comment_117740596

Good points made here. We are on top of this and in a way better position to stop the crazy hospitalisation rates, crazy lockdowns and crazy politicisation of health measures. I'm no fan of "vaccine passports" like Ireland has introduced, but boosters + effectiveness should still manage this virus into eventual oblivion and without forcing measures from a top down level. The UK kinda demonstrates this as these weeks pan out.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117740635#Comment_117740635

Heard a story this week first hand that gave me hope. Family of 6. Mother, father and four adult children. 2 adult children unvaccinated. One unvaccinated adult child brought virus into house and infected their unvaccinated sibling. All other family members were covid negative (3 different types of vaccines). There is some infection protection there we just need to ride this wave out as shite as it is listening to the news each day with regards to cases. How else are we so open as a society , and an R rate that is not massively above 1 at this stage. UK have brought r below 1 while open and similar vaccinated. We are following UK at this point in time whether we like or not individually. We just gotta ride the wave unfortunately.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117740480#Comment_117740480

I think most people know it. The immunocompromised are a different story. We don’t need to vaccinate everybody if the vaccines stopped transmission.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117740635#Comment_117740635

Well if you beg the question you will arrive at the answer you want. If the vaccinated or some of them get the virus then they are inoculated against it. That’s another way to herd immunity.

That’s good news about the U.K. looks like the vaccines are more effective than thought at blocking transmission.

McGiver

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117740416#Comment_117740416

We might get better results with boosters

Not sure. It would make sense to wait a bit before going ahead with a booster - then make sure a single booster addresses multiple variants of concern. And then it will have to be done quickly. Else another dominant strain will quickly evolve in partially vaccinated population. These partially vaccinated populations (or immunocompromised ones with HIV) seem to be generating tougher variants. Think SA and UK.

floorpie

When rates of hospitalisation are in the region of ~1 in a million for a large proportion of the population, the obvious thing to do is to only vaccinate vulnerable people, and let everybody "risk" infection. So this is what they'll do, devise a new vaccine for the dominant strain and only vaccinate those that are at risk.

bucketybuck

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117740662#Comment_117740662

There are a thousand stories from last year of one person getting covid and their wife/husband/children being perfectly fine/covid negative.

TonyMaloney

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117740683#Comment_117740683

But that's the whole point of herd immunity. It's meant to be a protective shield for people like the immunocompromised.

What are people who've had a recent transplant supposed to do now?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117740753#Comment_117740753

How is that the same. vaccinated protected. unvaccinated infected.

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117740496#Comment_117740496

Have you a source for the statement about the vast majority in hospital / ICU being unvaxxed?

Atlantic Dawn

Will a politician make the decision to proceed without the masks and general rubbish or will it require a public vote to decide on how the country faces the future? If politicians wish to proceed in locking down the country to unlivable status they should additionally provide one way trips to Switzerland for assisted suicide.

bucketybuck

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117740769#Comment_117740769

You said that one person brought covid into the house, that the unvaccinated caught it and the vaccinated did not, and used it as proof that vaccinations stopped that spread.

Except that there are countless examples of exactly that happening before vaccinations were possible. It was common as muck last year for one person to bring covid into a house, for some others in the house to catch it and for others in the same house not to.

I am vaccinated, I'm not anti vax, but your story doesn't say what you think it does.

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117740926#Comment_117740926

Yup it's been well documented.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.irishtimes.com/news/health/most-covid-deaths-intensive-care-admissions-among-unvaccinated-1.4628085%3fmode%3Damp

https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-health-941fcf43d9731c76c16e7354f5d5e187

https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/US/vast-majority-icu-patients-covid-19-unvaccinated-abc/story%3fid%3D79128401

snowcat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117741156#Comment_117741156

https://www.precisionvaccinations.com/2021/08/11/israels-covid-19-vaccine-breakthrough-cases-exceed-50

62% of Israeli serious Covid cases are in the fully vaxxed.

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117741167#Comment_117741167

Israel's vaccination rate has flattened and we are ahead of them on the % of fully vaccinated. They've only increased their total by 10% since March, something we've done in the last three weeks and it's still rising.

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117741167#Comment_117741167

You need to dig a little deeper into this and go beyond the scary headline figure. Vaccinated people who are having severe disease are almost all in the 80+ cohort. As we know age is the number 1 risk factor for Covid. The vaccines are effective but aren't bullet proof especially for elderly people. They can't make people younger!! Even so unvaccinated are substantially more at risk.

Among younger people the rate of severe disease is absolutely miniscule among the vaccinated population.

Why are people trying to say the vaccines are not effective? It's completely false and no better than anti vax nonsense people are screaming about.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.haaretz.com/amp/israel-news/the-israeli-graphs-that-prove-covid-vaccines-are-working-1.10101640

Pete_Cavan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117740635#Comment_117740635

Nonsense. People will just continue to get the virus and herd immunity will be reached that way eventually. The vaccines will however have prevented huge numbers of unnecessary deaths and avoid the health service collapsing under pressure. If it has to be herd immunity by infection, vaccination will allow for that in a controlled and stable manner so no, the concept is not out the window.

Deeper Blue

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117741221#Comment_117741221

....

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117741261#Comment_117741261

Cheers for the heads up!

TonyMaloney

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117741234#Comment_117741234

I don't think you read my post, Pete. I'm talking about herd immunity via vaccination alone, which was the plan. And I'm specifically concerned with how we protect the vulnerable now that the plan is unworkable.

Your post doesn't really address that, but thanks for taking the time to ignore what I wrote and call it nonsense anyway.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117740762#Comment_117740762

Well what they always did with regards to flus and colds I suppose. The immunocompromised don't have to be vaccinated or inoculated for herd immunity to work. For herd immunity to work the inoculated need to be greater than R/R-1 of the population. The transmission will die off, although outbreaks are possible.

Pete_Cavan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117741371#Comment_117741371

You claimed "if the vaccinated can often be infected and spread the virus themselves, then the whole concept is out the window". So yeah, nonsense.

The concept of vaccination is not "out the window", there are huge benefits to vaccination even if it doesn't prevent people from getting infected and spreading the virus. As regards herd immunity, even if it requires everyone getting infected with the virus, that can still happen. It was hoped we could achieve herd immunity via vaccination alone but that isn't the only goal of the vaccination plan. The other goals of hugely reduced severe illness and mortality are going very well and can still allow for herd immunity to be achieved even if not via vaccination alone.

Bringing how we protect the vulnerable into it now seems like moving the goalposts from where you started. Would the answer to that question be any different without vaccines? If anything, vaccines have made them easier to protect. Fair enough having a conversation around how we protect the vulnerable but you seem to be making out that vaccines are a problem in that (several times mentioning no chance of reaching herd immunity via vaccination).

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117741128#Comment_117741128

Last year's variant wasn't as contagious. If Delta is as contagious as some scientists say then you would expect if someone gets it in a home, then everybody would get it, unless vaccinated.

TonyMaloney

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117741580#Comment_117741580

Pete, read the post please. You keep banging on about things I didn't say.

josip

Gibraltar not taking any chances achieving herd immunity from a 90-100% vaccination rate.

They've hit 100 and kept going.

(boards has taken a perfectly good image and made it unreadable, here's a link)

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

Ardent

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117741221#Comment_117741221

Great response to that hysterical nonsense. This data is very interesting and very encouraging (for younger cohorts especially). Thanks for sharing.

seamus

Ultimately the immunocompromised will do what they have always done; take care. The closest I've been to that was a good friend whose boyfriend underwent treatment for leukaemia. The usual fare where they annihilate your bone marrow and replace it with the cancer-free stuff.

Her family home was closer to the hospital than his, so he moved in with her family while he was recovering, and they had to have very strict measures in place for themselves. No visitors were allowed to the home except for a few key people. Even of those key people it was made very clear that the slightest inkling of any illness and they had to stay away until they were better. Everyone living in the house limited their social contacts. My friend convinced work to transfer her to a desk job for a full 12 months where she'd have minimal contact with anyone.

And they had all sorts of contingency plans; where he would go if everyone else got sick. Where one family member would go if they got sick.

The reality is that immunocompromised people have been doing all of these things forever. And they will just continue doing it. The WHO are currently trialling treatments for covid, which should provide some relief/comfort for the immunocompromised. But ultimately the nature of the beast is that we can't perfectly protect them, we can only do our best.

One would hope - if someone is immunocompromised - that their primary and secondary social bubbles would all be fully vaccinated, which will massively limit the potential for a breakthrough infection to them.

Pete_Cavan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117741605#Comment_117741605

No I don't, I have used your exact words several times.

You talk about not reaching herd immunity via vaccination, why? We can still reach it via infection, only vaccines mean we avoid most of the negative consequences of that happening naturally.

You asked how do we protect the vulnerable, would the answer to that question be any different without vaccines?

machaseh

So develop a new vaccine that works better against the delta variant.

Once all who WANT to be vaccinated have been fully vaccinated and their vaccine has activated (which takes 2 weeks after the last jab), we should remove ALL coronavirus restrictions. All of them.

floorpie

Based on data from other places (e.g., Estimation of Total Immunity to SARS-CoV-2 in Texas | medRxiv) it's likely that a notable proportion of people are immune but don't realise it via asymptomatic infection. As far as I'm aware, calculations for vaccination levels needed for herd immunity assume statistical independence between those who are previously infected, and those who've been vaccinated. If this assumption is violated then the level of vaccination needed for herd immunity is lower.

Back of the envelope based on the Texas data of seropositivity, that shows that this assumption is significantly violated, it reduces the requirement for herd immunity from 80% vaccination to ~50%. If the vaccines worked for delta then I assume we'll have herd immunity soon in Ireland.

TonyMaloney

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117741631#Comment_117741631

Sorry to hear that. How is he now?

I'm aware that the immunocompromised have to be very careful tyically, but I think it's fair to say that covid has ratcheted it up a notch or two.

Your friend's boyfriend is going to have to endure an exceptionally protected and difficult time until such a time as the herd can be relied upon to protect him.

And my point is that we're nowhere near that. And nobody can say when we might get there.

I've no local data, but a quick google suggests 2.7% of Americans are compromised, so I think it's a fair to say that it's a significant problem

timmyntc

Herd immunity cannot happen even with 100% vaccination coverage because of the number of "breakthrough" or repeat infections. They alone will be enough to sustain the virus in a population so that we never get herd immunity.

And the fact that there are now several animal reservoirs of the virus (including deer) - covid is not going anywhere

Former Former Former

The problem is people thinking of herd immunity as meaning the end of Covid, like with measles or smallpox. That was never likely.

However, we can get to a point where herd immunity reduces the risk and impact of Covid to a manageable level, and we're very close to that.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117741800#Comment_117741800

That is by definition, not herd immunity.

Herd immunity is where there is enough immunity in a population to prevent circulation of a virus - so those who cant get vaccinated can still be protected. We cannot get to that level for SARS-COV-2 because its too infectious, you can still get infected and shed virus even when vaccinated, and at a (relatively) high rate compared to other viruses. So we will never get that population level protection.

Former Former Former

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117741823#Comment_117741823

The definition of herd immunity is that enough people have immunity so that the risk to those without immunity is greatly reduced (NB - there is no such thing as zero risk). The problem (again) is that people are thinking about herd immunity as an all-or-nothing scenario and that is never going to be the case.

We can get enough herd immunity to resume normal life.

Flinty997

The first large scale vaccinations only started in Dec. Why would anyone think this would be gone in 8 or 9 months.

Why would people be giving and throwing in the towel on vaccinations after a few months. I don't get it.

"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_infectious_diseases"

brickster69

Anyone want to tell this guy he is wrong ?

https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/1425086490002997248

Basing strategies around herd immunity was flawed anyway. The idea that infections would stop once once we reached a certain threshold of immunity was never realistic in the long term.

The ultimate outcome of SARS-CoV-2 is heading towards endemicity where it exists in the background for the foreseeable future. Pretty much everyone can expect to be exposed eventually either through vaccination or infection. The vaccines may not always protect against infection but they are remarkably effective at reducing morbidity and mortality as well as transmission (I don't care what the CDC says. They do). Most can expect to be re-infected multiple times throughout their lives. Good news is though due to immune memory a vast majority of these infections will be mild.

As for protecting the vulnerable, booster programs will likely be a feature of life going forward. Particularly for the immunocompromised.

Former Former Former

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117741881#Comment_117741881

He's not wrong, he just has a different take on the same set of facts.

He proposes that people in the UK will have a higher (but still very low) risk of serious illness, in order to send vaccines abroad to help vaccinate at-risk individuals in poorer countries.

I see his point, but if he was talking about Ireland, how many people would say "yes, let's continue with Covid restrictions so that we can help other people around the world".

snowcat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117741261#Comment_117741261

I get banned from lots of diverse threads. I post verifiable but unpopular opionions. I like to question things. I read a lot of diverse opinions. Does not make me an anti-vaxxer. I am very much pro vaccine and have been vaccinated. I question lots of chemical/drug among others claims such as pesticides biocides anti-depressants sun screen GM products. fertilizers, preservatives etc. Does not mean I doubt their effectiveness or will never use them. Seems any opinion/query/view that does not meet the mainstream opinion is best dealt with a thread ban and a label of 'anti-vaxxer'. I will probably get a forum ban now. Censorship is alive and well.