Last week I read a news article on how the CDC are moving away from a target of controlling the covid epidemic by trying to reach herd immunity. In the words of Dr Jefferson Jones, a medical officer on the CDC’s COVID-19 Epidemiology Task Force: The prospects for meeting a clear herd-immunity target are “very complicated,” … Thinking that we’ll be able to achieve some kind of threshold where there’ll be no more transmission of infections may not be possible,”
Bartram, this is a splendid, very understandable piece.
In conjunction with the Roy Anderson study, everything now becomes clear for the cockupist.
They are just trying to increase the vaxx rare to reach HI and following RMA's recommendations to a T.
Besides misunderstanding HI, ignoring its complexities and often likely still equating it with elimination, they ignore that negative VE, like confirmed now in the UK, by definition/math leeds to a RISE in cases, as we can all witness now. The question then becomes: are the additional hospitalisations/deaths due to the vaxx rate push increased rise in cases lower than the ones prevented through that additional vaxxing, or lower than if vaxxing was stopped now, or if it had only been performed with those at most risk.
I think we all know the answer to that intuitively, but maybe you can throw some mathematical light on it?!
I've not done the modelling, but I note a few points:
The relative increased rate of infection (cases) in the vaccinated appears to be approximately double that of the unvaccinated. This would be the equivalent of having R0=3 in the unvaccinated but R0=6 in the vaccinated. But total cases don't linearly track R0 -- because it is an exponential function case numbers will more than double. I'd guess that a doubling in R0 would give a tenfold rise in cases.
I believe that the protection against death from the vaccines is at best 3 fold at the moment(It is likely even less).
Taking these two points in consideration would suggest that the next deaths situation is we're currently running at about 3 times more deaths than if we'd not vaccinated anyone.
I'd suggest that the best compromise would have been to have only vaccinated the most vulnerable -- that way we'd have saved the vast majority of deaths but not have had the increase in cases. Perhaps we're at 10 fold more deaths than we'd have had with this approach.
Anyway, thanks for the observation -- it is an interesting point that I might return to in a post soon.
Here in NZ herd immunity was initially suggested at 70%, then retracted, then no level was high enough, then 90% was the magic double vaccinated number then experts said it was not enough. Zero talk of natural immunity. Really. I think the state is just in the business of selling vaccines at this stage. That's the only theory that makes all the insanity make sense. NZ political class and media are in PR for Pfizer and this is the best business model I've ever seen.
I rather like NZ -- I've spent some time in your country, mainly in North Island, and was impressed with the friendly nature of the locals...
Unfortunately, the situation in NZ is rather dire. I predict that you're about to have a rather brutal covid wave. It is very lucky that you're in summer because this will lower deaths by a significant margin. This wave will probably be blamed on Omicron, but it is very likely the consequence of mass vaccination. I'm about to write a post on this.
Bartram, are you aware of the remarkable bad ranking of your blog posts in Google Search? It's a shame. Only "the never ending search for herd immunity" (with quotes!) finally makes this page show up ... o tempora, o mores.
Bartram, this is a splendid, very understandable piece.
In conjunction with the Roy Anderson study, everything now becomes clear for the cockupist.
They are just trying to increase the vaxx rare to reach HI and following RMA's recommendations to a T.
Besides misunderstanding HI, ignoring its complexities and often likely still equating it with elimination, they ignore that negative VE, like confirmed now in the UK, by definition/math leeds to a RISE in cases, as we can all witness now. The question then becomes: are the additional hospitalisations/deaths due to the vaxx rate push increased rise in cases lower than the ones prevented through that additional vaxxing, or lower than if vaxxing was stopped now, or if it had only been performed with those at most risk.
I think we all know the answer to that intuitively, but maybe you can throw some mathematical light on it?!
Yes -- that's an interesting point.
I've not done the modelling, but I note a few points:
The relative increased rate of infection (cases) in the vaccinated appears to be approximately double that of the unvaccinated. This would be the equivalent of having R0=3 in the unvaccinated but R0=6 in the vaccinated. But total cases don't linearly track R0 -- because it is an exponential function case numbers will more than double. I'd guess that a doubling in R0 would give a tenfold rise in cases.
I believe that the protection against death from the vaccines is at best 3 fold at the moment(It is likely even less).
Taking these two points in consideration would suggest that the next deaths situation is we're currently running at about 3 times more deaths than if we'd not vaccinated anyone.
I'd suggest that the best compromise would have been to have only vaccinated the most vulnerable -- that way we'd have saved the vast majority of deaths but not have had the increase in cases. Perhaps we're at 10 fold more deaths than we'd have had with this approach.
Anyway, thanks for the observation -- it is an interesting point that I might return to in a post soon.
Thank you. You do a fantastic, very helpful and very important job with your posts!
Here in NZ herd immunity was initially suggested at 70%, then retracted, then no level was high enough, then 90% was the magic double vaccinated number then experts said it was not enough. Zero talk of natural immunity. Really. I think the state is just in the business of selling vaccines at this stage. That's the only theory that makes all the insanity make sense. NZ political class and media are in PR for Pfizer and this is the best business model I've ever seen.
I'm sorry to have not replied sooner...
I rather like NZ -- I've spent some time in your country, mainly in North Island, and was impressed with the friendly nature of the locals...
Unfortunately, the situation in NZ is rather dire. I predict that you're about to have a rather brutal covid wave. It is very lucky that you're in summer because this will lower deaths by a significant margin. This wave will probably be blamed on Omicron, but it is very likely the consequence of mass vaccination. I'm about to write a post on this.
Hi. If a reproduction number is 3, but only 2 out of the three becomes transmissible then is the R number not 2, plus one dead end?
If on average a third of infections didn’t result in further transmissions then it makes the reproduction number of 3 a bit misleading.
How would this work out in a population?
Just thinking in general terms.
It is just something I’ve never heard being discussed before in R number conversations.
Thanks
Bartram, are you aware of the remarkable bad ranking of your blog posts in Google Search? It's a shame. Only "the never ending search for herd immunity" (with quotes!) finally makes this page show up ... o tempora, o mores.