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WHO Changes Definition of “Herd Immunity” to Eliminate Pre-COVID Consensus

Posted by $ BobCat 4 years, 6 months ago to News
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“ The World Health Organization has changed the definition of “herd immunity,” eliminating the pre-COVID consensus that it could be achieved by allowing a virus to spread through a population, and insisting that herd immunity comes solely from vaccines.”


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  • Posted by freedomforall 4 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    'The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'
    -- Ronald Reagan
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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 4 years, 6 months ago
    There can be no safety or security not brought and begged for from government. How can mere biological forces provide safety from COVID?

    “Come to me, ye sheep. Give unto me your wealth and your freedom, and I will provide you your needs and happiness. Just believe in me, your government.”
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  • Posted by Lucky 4 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    TheRealBill A long post but good, thanks.
    I agree, herd immunity is a useful concept. There are different valid views on the percentage figure to make it effective. I prefer the opinions of the Great Barrington Declaration people who for the C19 virus go for the lower end of the range.
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  • Posted by term2 4 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I might be a bit simplistic, but I kind of got addicted to “walking dead” awhile back. I think there are analogous with the covid pandemic in many ways. Zombies= corona virus. Vaccines people= ones who carry weapons and who kill zombies. Lockdown= hiding in a fortified house

    I live in kia vegas. For a long time in the beginning of the pandemic, there were like 1000 deaths out of nearly 3 million residents. I thought my chance of meeting a zombie and getting bitten here was like 1000/ 3,000,000. So my decision was to avoid situations where large numbers of zombies congregated- like nightclubs, concerts, casino shows. I didn’t like being cooped up in crowded planes, cruise ships, trains, etc- so u stayed away

    But I continued on with my life. I got groceries, went to Costco at uncrowned times, and continued eating out. I didn’t think masks were if much effectiveness, so I didn’t wear one except when forced to.

    I went outside and didn’t stay cooped up with strangers, but I pretty much thought the governmental mandates were useless and infringed on my rights

    It’s 9 months later, and so far I have been ok and 75 years old. Now I am being offered weapons against the zombies (vaccines). I think I have survived because of what I have chosen to do, not obey the gov mandates
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  • Posted by term2 4 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I agree. We have too many enrolled at university of pelican bay, and others, where we teach them the fine points of violating human rights
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  • Posted by term2 4 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I had Bell’s palsy 3 years ago and SURE don’t want it again from this vaccine !!!
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  • Posted by TheRealBill 4 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    No, what we call “herd immunity” is an actual thing. The name kind of hints back to it’s century old origins.

    It isn’t a binary, and it isn’t the same across different viruses either. Some may only need 60% of the herd to have resistance while others may need that level to be in the 90s. That is part of what has been missing this time in the discussion.

    Vaccines have be a tremendous aid in establishing the needed herd immunity, but they are far from required across the board.

    Basically it is achieved when a high enough percentage of the herd (cows were the origin IIRC) has an immunity (though technically resistance is also a factor) to the contagion that your chance of getting it is low - which also means it can’t run wild.

    The specifics are highly population and infection dependent. For example: in a spread out herd the requirement may be lower. Conversely with a high reproduction number the level may be higher.

    Then when you add vaccines it doesn’t get simpler. The less effective or protective a vaccine is the higher the level will be.

    Influenza is a prime example. Our vaccines are fairly terrible - with an effectiveness ranking in the 25-40% range depending on the year and strain as well as the population.

    On that note: studies from 2009’s pandemic that analyzed the last three decades showed significantly higher levels of herd immunity when school children were vaccinated by priority instead of when elderly were.

    Part of the problem around herd immunity in the current discussion is the problem of herds. We, Americans, are not one herd. We are legion. (Hehe). A given population in America - such as geographical - may obtain herd immunity while another does not.

    For me the key to understanding Fauci is that he is first and foremost a vaccine guy. Vaccines are his hammer. It is the only tool he has, so it is the only solution he can see.

    Now here is where he has a problem with herd immunity: if we achieve it without vaccines, do we really need him and his hammer? Clearly there would be a case to be made that we do not (I can make that case either way though, so I may be biased there) and therein lies his fundamental issue.

    Whatever he started his career as, he has been a “politician doctor” long enough that he has lost the plot. That isn’t a personal dig; it happens across all fields with experts who move into management.

    That said Fauci is essentially a poster boy for one of Eisenhower’s warnings: the one about “science experts” being in politics and making decisions. It is a very rare individual who can get to that level of virtual worship and come out not wanting to preserve or expand it. Frankly I haven’t seen any indication he is one such person - indeed his lying about lying is a counterweight to such a notion.

    But despite herd immunity the underlying problem is what else is missing from the discussion: the still decreasing risk of hospitalization and death from this virus.

    If the death Risk is high, bang the death risk. If the death risk isn’t high but the hospitalization risk is high, bang that. If you have neither, bang the infection rate. If you don’t even have that bang “new infections” and “new strains”. It’s the equivalent of the lawyer banging the table because she has neither facts nor law.

    Notice that when they talk of deaths they only talk about the total. If they deign to talk of the currents they drop the context of “compared to what?” And they never talk about the “case fatality rate”. It’s a blatant catch 22 they are stuck in. By claiming we have more and more cases but not a equivalent rise in deaths they are leaving the elephant of a lower death rate hanging.
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  • Posted by Abaco 4 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Based on what I saw here in California I think she's a psychopath. She openly argued here that we need to prolong prison sentences so that we can have enough slave labor to fight all our forest fires. This meant something to me because I have done a lot of design work on California's "conservation camps". These are the low-security prison camps in remote sites where we house these prisoner fire-fighters. It bothered me when I'd hear a warden brag, "Oh, we have a plumber, a sheetrock guy, a couple sheet metal guys." A lot of these guys were serving long sentences for a bounced check - etc. I know because I'd chat with them once in a while. I'd tell these guys, "Man, you gotta get out of here..." Bothered me a lot to be that close to that issue...
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  • Posted by Abaco 4 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The reports that have been published regarding post-vax problems indicate the Pfizer vaccine has enough aluminum or other adjuvant to kill a horse. Adjuvants are extremely dangerous.
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  • Posted by term2 4 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Good points. I have a thought about so called herd immunity, especially in view of Fauci saying we need 90% vaccination to “get it”. Isn’t herd immunity a fictional idea? If you can walk around and only very occasionally run into a carrier, is that herd immunity? Maybe this herd thing is just an analog reflection of risk of catching it. Fauci talks like it’s a digital thing- we have herd immunity or we dont
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  • Posted by term2 4 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    She could devalu the dollar , take away our guns, and double or triple our taxes
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  • Posted by TheRealBill 4 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I get what you’re trying to say. However the reality sends an even stronger message.

    The strain that caused the famous Spanish flu of 1918 didn’t go away. I’ve had it. A lot of us have. Did you get the flu in the 2009 flu pandemic? If so, there is a high chance you have as well.

    That particular strain has come back twice that I recall. But most people don’t know about it. For them it is “just a flu”. Or they know it as H1N1 or “swine flu.” It was even detected in swine back then as well.

    There is a heavy dose of misinformation about that one. It wasn’t because we didn’t know better. And the idea of it “coming back” and being even worse than it was is equally absurd ignorance. There is a connection between those two statements.

    Something else was going on in 1918. War. You can trace the spread of it around military troop transfers. From there it spread out all hub-and-spoke like. Which is why the claim of “but today we have air travel” is weak. Guess how it spread in 1918? Yup - air travel.

    Of course, the fact that it has come back twice and been a footnote at best is pretty strong evidence of my assertion that the claim of it being devastating “if it ever came back” is bull. 😛

    Now as to why it wasn’t a big deal. Passed down herd immunity. Which is where the irony is. Some types of immunity is sort of hereditary. Not in the sense of genetic memory but from mother to child during passage through the birth canal.

    This is one of the reasons why that flu pandemic didn’t hit elderly as hard as it usually did - they had here immunity as a population due to prior “exposure”. As one would reasonably surmise, that effect dilutes over successive generations.

    And finally H1N1 is still circulating as one of the common seasonal flu strains. One final note on 2009’s pandemic - the vaccine came well after the main thrust of it had already passed.
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  • Posted by $ pixelate 4 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Excellent! Good to hear that you've not only escaped becoming a financial casualty from the Great Covid Crisis Catastrophe Panic -- you've pulled in some healthy returns. Cheers to higher returns in 2021.
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  • Posted by edkbaker 4 years, 6 months ago
    Honestly, do they really think we don't realize that they have been lying since day 1? It makes me want to scream as they just continue to treat us like idiots!
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  • Posted by freedomforall 4 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That would imply that government would be subject to free market forces. Competition by allowing taxpayers to opt out of funding projects like war on poverty, war on drugs, war in Afghanistan, Dept of Ejakashin, guaranteed loans to raise the wages of college propagandists.
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  • Posted by Ben_C 4 years, 6 months ago
    WHO's on first? Where are Abbott and Costello when we need them. The WHO now has negative credibility if that is possible. I suggest we have a line item veto for the taxes we pay to the Fed's. None of my tax dollars will go to the WHO and all other pork barrel projects. I will support "essential" services (that doesn't include
    Congress) but not the self serving bureaucrats.
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  • Posted by term2 4 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I am waiting to see what happens. testing on 30,000 wont tell you what happens to ME with my special situations.
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  • Posted by term2 4 years, 6 months ago
    More BS from the WHO. 1918 Spanish Flu magically disappeared without a vaccine. Whatever "herd immunity" means, I think it was achieved in that pandemic.
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  • Posted by Joseph23006 4 years, 6 months ago
    Since we already know WHO carried the Corona Virus water for the Chinese Communists from the outset of the pandemic it can certainly be concluded that this new pronouncement should be taken with a (large) grain of (rock) salt! No doubt this is to pressure the United States to provide vaccines to the rest of the world immediately and curtail protecting our own people (the right thing to do?). I'm sure many of the Biden folk will be in agreement even though they had nothing to do with the creation and implementation of the program to make it available. The WHO has been all over the place since this began with explanations (lies) and procedures (ineffective) to curtail the spread and find a cure! Nuff said!
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  • Posted by AmericanWoman 4 years, 6 months ago
    Merry Christmas All......just learned...I have a sister 1/2 who lives in the UK near Wales, flooding yes, children lost presents for tomorrow but she also learned the latest strain that is effecting them came from Africa :/
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