What is "Heard Immunity"?

[Taem]

If we are to believe the media, heard immunity is when 50-90% (depending on the contagion rate) of the population is immune to a virus.

Currently, 27% of the US is half vaccinated (single shot) with 43% fully vaccinated.

Although, people who have previously had COVID only need one shot.

So, how many people in the US have had COVID? At least 21% have had COVID. But this is a misnomer because in fact the infection is about 10x worse than reported!

So there are no real numbers to base this off of, and 10 x 20 = 100%, so that cannot be correct. Regardless, even if the numbers of infected were merely double, 2x instead of 10x as reported by NPR, that would be 42% of the population having had COVID. Add in the amount of people who are fully vaccinated 69%, and if we extrapolate that 42% of people who got the single shot only needed a single dose to begin with, then we can add another 18%, or 87%. Is this not enough for heard immunity? Keep in mind, this is only doubling the rate of reported infected when news outlets are suggesting the rate of infection is actually 10x. So my real question here is, when will our leader be satiated in feeling we (the US) have reached heard immunity? Will it only be after 80% of people get fully vaccinated and the bio-tech firms repaid for their endeavors?

*Full disclosure here, I do not think the vaccine is necessary, and yet I am surrounded by fearful individuals so after much of my own research into mRNA, I felt entirely confident that the 2-shot vaccines were completely safe so I am now fully vaccinated myself. I made this choice for myself to visit my grandmother who is in here 90's, and to travel abroad without problems, but I will reiterate, I do not feel it was necessary. Many people I personally know and apparently myself had COVID and were entirely asymptomatic! I got sick on my first dose like prior COVID patients did, and had zero effect onmy second dose.

[Lissa]

If we are to believe the media, heard immunity is when 50-90% (depending on the contagion rate) of the population is immune to a virus.

Currently, 27% of the US is half vaccinated (single shot) with 43% fully vaccinated.

Although, people who have previously had COVID only need one shot.

So, how many people in the US have had COVID? At least 21% have had COVID. But this is a misnomer because in fact the infection is about 10x worse than reported!

So there are no real numbers to base this off of, and 10 x 20 = 100%, so that cannot be correct. Regardless, even if the numbers of infected were merely double, 2x instead of 10x as reported by NPR, that would be 42% of the population having had COVID. Add in the amount of people who are fully vaccinated 69%, and if we extrapolate that 42% of people who got the single shot only needed a single dose to begin with, then we can add another 18%, or 87%. Is this not enough for heard immunity? Keep in mind, this is only doubling the rate of reported infected when news outlets are suggesting the rate of infection is actually 10x. So my real question here is, when will our leader be satiated in feeling we (the US) have reached heard immunity? Will it only be after 80% of people get fully vaccinated and the bio-tech firms repaid for their endeavors?

*Full disclosure here, I do not think the vaccine is necessary, and yet I am surrounded by fearful individuals so after much of my own research into mRNA, I felt entirely confident that the 2-shot vaccines were completely safe so I am now fully vaccinated myself. I made this choice for myself to visit my grandmother who is in here 90's, and to travel abroad without problems, but I will reiterate, I do not feel it was necessary. Many people I personally know and apparently myself had COVID and were entirely asymptomatic! I got sick on my first dose like prior COVID patients did, and had zero effect onmy second dose.

*facepalm*  *facepalm*  *facepalm*  *facepalm*
As someone that works for a sub-agency of HHS and actually is involved in making sure that Telehealth.hhs.gov is up and being properly updated, I can tell that you are clueless just by your initial statistics.

It is no 40% are fully vaccinated and 27% have a single shot, it's the other way around.  There are more people that have received a single shot than are fully vaccinated.  The numbers as of Apr 19th was 25% fully vaccinated and 40% have a single shot.

As of today, Apr 29th, between 33 and 34 Million US citizens have had COVID, roughly 10% of the US population.  Of that, just shy of 590k have died.

Similarly, herd immunity is where the chance of transmission in the population is near 0.  As had been found based on the transmission rate of COVID, roughly 75% to 80% of US citizens would need to be immune to the virus, these means anywhere from 3 in 4 to 4 in 5 must be immune in someway, either through vaccination or building up an immunity through having the virus.

Here's the thing about getting vaccinated, it isn't just for you, just like wearing a mask, vaccinations and mask wearing is not to protect you from others, it's to protect others from YOU!.  Everyone should get vaccinated so they don't end up potentially killing someone because they don't think they have anything to worry about.

So, let me re-iterate for everyone on this forum:

Get vaccinated so you protect others from you, not to just protect yourself!

[Taem]

As someone that works for a sub-agency of HHS and actually is involved in making sure that Telehealth.hhs.gov is up and being properly updated, I can tell that you are clueless just by your initial statistics.

I do not doubt that there is much I am ignorant of when it comes to infectious diseases, however the "statistics" I supplied do not in fact come from me at all, but from agencies such as the CDC.

It is no 40% are fully vaccinated and 27% have a single shot, it's the other way around.  There are more people that have received a single shot than are fully vaccinated.  The numbers as of Apr 19th was 25% fully vaccinated and 40% have a single shot.

Yes, listing the mistaken reversal was my error, not the articles, but has *nothing* to do with the final numbers I generate, as I use the lesser number of 27% showing that I did in fact know what I was referring to, even though I incorrectly swapped it in that single sentence.

As of today, Apr 29th, between 33 and 34 Million US citizens have had COVID, roughly 10% of the US population.

I already provided a link disputing this, but it seems you do not like verifying sources. Here is the direct university study. Those numbers put the actual infected at 21.5%.

Of that, just shy of 590k have died.

And this number is also in great dispute, by the CDC no less! In case you are hesitant to click on my links, the CDC reports that up to 94% of all COVID related deaths are inappropriately contributed to COVID when in fact, their death was due to an underlying health condition. I cannot even make this stuff up... it is known. But I really do not wish to delve into that aspect of this at all because then this leads to many more questions and finger pointing. I would like to stick to strictly Herd Immunity aspect if you do not mind.

Not to mention, as I linked in my OP post, as reported by NPR News no less - an unbiased left-leaning source at that - have made it abundantly clear the reported COVID numbers are potentially incorrect and up to 10x worse! None of this is in dispute, so tout your rhetoric all you like, facts are facts.

I am not an anti-vaxer - I got both doses of the Pfizer vaccine - however I like to hear facts for what they are, not fear mongering from brain-washed puppets who work for health agencies spouting off what they've been told to think instead of doing any investigations based on the plethora of available and reliable evidence.

Similarly, herd immunity is where the chance of transmission in the population is near 0.  As had been found based on the transmission rate of COVID, roughly 75% to 80% of US citizens would need to be immune to the virus, these means anywhere from 3 in 4 to 4 in 5 must be immune in someway, either through vaccination or building up an immunity through having the virus.

Yes, and I should not have included the additional 10x worse report, since the 21.5% already accounts for this. So this is how it actually looks:

FULLY VACCINATED: 27%
COVID INFECTED RECOVERED: 21.5%
FULLY VACCINATED SINGLE-DOSE: = 9.25% (21.5% of the 43% single-dose)

= 57.75% immune

You are correct that this number is insufficient to reach heard immunity.

Here's the thing about getting vaccinated, it isn't just for you, just like wearing a mask, vaccinations and mask wearing is not to protect you from others, it's to protect others from YOU!.  Everyone should get vaccinated so they don't end up potentially killing someone because they don't think they have anything to worry about.

So, let me re-iterate for everyone on this forum:

Get vaccinated so you protect others from you, not to just protect yourself!

I actually agree with this, however people can get overzealous and ruin it for the rest of us. For example, I am fully vaccinated and my wife had our child last week and we had to get COVID tested as per the hospital rules. We both came back negative for COVID. I took my daughter to the park during this time and got dirty looks and nasty comments for not wearing a mask when we all should know by now that the mask protects others from me, yet I was absolutely not a threat to anyone at that moment, but this widespread fear is so perverse, it overrides logic in otherwise logical individuals. Despite me explaining my healthy condition to others, they did not care and still got upset. This FEAR is one of the real issues that bothers me, and I think it's one of the main reason, the main thing stopping logical people from looking into COVID truths when the information is right there in front of their faces... in plain sight no less!

Just as an aside, my neighbor is from Brazil and the death toll down there is catastrophic. COVID is real, make no mistake, and as Lissa said, you should get vaccinated if not for you, then for those who might not survive the infection if you gave it to them.

[Lissa]

First off, models are not confirmed cases. At present, there have been 33+ Million confirmed cases in the US. Without confirmation, a model is only so good as without confirmation you cannot tell if your model is good or not. In this case, the model could have improper settings that could over inflate the numbers.

Second off, seriously? Does it really matter that much if someone had an underlying condition that made COVID worse on not for them? They still died to being infected by COVID so it's 100% COVID that is the cause. Just because someone has Heart Disease and get pneumonia and they die from pneumonia doesn't mean that they didn't die from pneumonia because they had Heart Disease and were more likely to die because of it. The cause of death is still pneumonia. Just like in the COVID deaths being 590k+ deaths, people still died from COVID, just because they had an underlying condition that made them more susceptible DOES NOT MEAN that they didn't die from COVID.

[DeeBye]

I just can't take this seriously when you continue to confuse "herd immunity" with "heard immunity".

[Taem]

I just can't take this seriously when you continue to confuse "herd immunity" with "heard immunity".

Eek, how embarrassing.

Speaking of not taking myself seriously, I've just had that dreaded call telling me I have to self isolate! Apparently my roommates cat has Covid 19! Don't ask Meow! Have you "heard" about John Travolta? John Travolta was hospitalized for a suspected case of Coronavirus, but doctors soon realized that it was only a Saturday Night Fever and he will be Staying Alive . By this point, most of the world has been exposed to COVID-19, but the people in Wuhan got it right of the bat .

Lol, might as well have some fun with my fool moniker for now.

[Taem]

First off, models are not confirmed cases.  At present, there have been 33+ Million confirmed cases in the US.  Without confirmation, a model is only so good as without confirmation you cannot tell if your model is good or not.  In this case, the model could have improper settings that could over inflate the numbers.

You make a good point, and media will always sensationalize everything they can get their hands on so, this remains TBD. I will say that if people continue to fail getting tested when they are asymptomatic, I doubt we will ever see accurate numbers.

Second off, seriously?  Does it really matter that much if someone had an underlying condition that made COVID worse on not for them?  They still died to being infected by COVID so it's 100% COVID that is the cause.  Just because someone has Heart Disease and get pneumonia and they die from pneumonia doesn't mean that they didn't die from pneumonia because they had Heart Disease and were more likely to die because of it.  The cause of death is still pneumonia.  Just like in the COVID deaths being 590k+ deaths, people still died from COVID, just because they had an underlying condition that made them more susceptible DOES NOT MEAN that they didn't die from COVID.

I agree with what you are saying here, but I heard news stories and testimonials of domestic homicides committed during the lock down where the deceased tested positive for COVID and was rung up as a COVID death. There is quite a bit of evidence (not conspiracy sites, but actual evidence I am certain you are aware of) pointing to hospitals getting paid tens of thousands for each COVID death they clocked in, so I can see why many hospitals misappropriated the cause of death for anyone who had COVID in their system when the died. FactCheck.org

When I was in the hospital with my broken arm, that crooked hospital I was in kept my case in legislative hell when they knew I needed my external fixator removed and my bone plated, but despite having openings, they kept me in limbo for several months until just after my insurance expired in December knowing full well I was getting an insurance more favorable to them so they could charge more. Fucking crooks! They then kept sending additional bills every month for nickel and dime BS related to that one surgery which went on for roughly six months! They were evil crooked and only interested in their bottom line, despite having fantastic doctors! I do not have a single doubt in my mind that when you run a hospital like a business, those in charge will be making business decisions, and that means falsely raking up COVID-19 deaths to increase the bottom line. How much of an effect did this have on the reported COVID deaths? I really do not know, but seeing the CDC say 94% of COVID deaths were not directly caused by COVID... well you can say it gets me concerned that greed might be trumping ethics.

[Quark]

https://usafacts.org/articles/preliminar...s-age-flu/

Preliminary US death statistics show over 3.4 million total deaths in 2020 — 20% more deaths than in 2019

While death certificates from 2020 are still being processed, over 572,000 more people died in 2020 than in 2019.

How many times do you have to be called out on bullshit statistics on this topic?

[Jester]

The death toll here in the UK has been *worse* than in the US, despite having an entirely socialised medical system that provides no motive to misrepresent causes of death for insurance purposes. If you accept that deaths are high in many places around the world (the United States is not even an outlier in this regard (https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths)) then what is left to explain with speculation about misreporting cases?

-Jester

[Taem]

The death toll here in the UK has been *worse* than in the US, despite having an entirely socialised medical system that provides no motive to misrepresent causes of death for insurance purposes. If you accept that deaths are high in many places around the world (the United States is not even an outlier in this regard (https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths)) then what is left to explain with speculation about misreporting cases?

-Jester

Jester, I greatly appreciate your level-headed response! There is so much misinformation floating about, it can be very difficult to get accurate and reliable information. There are keyboard warriors pounding away on both aisles and responses such as Quarks do not help anyone. I made it clear in my couple of posts that I am not knowledgeable in these things as much as I'd like to be; I think I even called myself ignorant when it comes to fully understanding the scope of COVID, so I thank you for your patience in indulging me Jester.

In regards to your link, yes it seems pretty clear to me the cases of misrepresentation of death must be very small, as to not have any real effect on the total death outcome, that much is clear. I am glad to know that because it changes my perspective on things, at least in what I read about COVID, although I still may not personally trust hospitals. And just FYI, I had stated some years ago, but I am not sure if anyone around here really remembers, I have not had cable TV for over 15-years now! I get a lot of my information from word of mouth, or Google-Fu, but that can be such a mixed bag. And unfortunately the people I talk to are not very open minded, raging right-winged, and love Fox news so, I try to keep an open mind in spite of my family.

I think the end takeaway from this topic is that the US is not even close the the herd immunity threshold. So I think since the word on the street is vaccine participation is dying off, when will the US (or the world) accept that whoever wanted a vaccine has already received it, and it is time to open things back up to normal levels and let whoever did not get the vaccine reap the consequences of their choices?

[LennyLen]

So I think since the word on the street is vaccine participation is dying off, when will the US (or the world) accept that whoever wanted a vaccine has already received it, and it is time to open things back up to normal levels and let whoever did not get the vaccine reap the consequences of their choices?

I guess it depends on what decision is made regarding the benefit of open travel vs the risk of exposing people who can't be vaccinated for medical reasons?

[LemmingofGlory]

You're minimizing the danger presented by covid and individualizing the harm it presents. It's not a binary matter of infection survival versus infection death. Many people have lingering ill health effects (brain, heart, or lung damage) after recovering from covid. A friend of mine, someone who once frequented these forums, had covid in August and still struggles with lingering breathing trouble that he compares to having walking pneumonia. He's considered quitting his job because of it. He manages a grocery store. To my knowledge it's unknown if "long covid" like this will be temporary or permanent, but I think ignoring this aspect of the pandemic is reckless.

To suggest that we should "open things back to normal levels and allow people to reap the consequences of their choices" individualizes the risk of a pandemic that affects everyone. There is some optimism that the vaccines may protect against new mutated strains of the virus, but my impression is that it is too early to say for sure. It does us no good to "reopen" (ie, to drop protective measures that minimize the reproductive strategy of a respiratory virus) only for the damned virus to mutate and threaten everyone all over again - including the people who already got vaccinated (who you assume will be safe). We should be focusing on encouraging the vaccine-hesitant to go ahead and get vaccinated, and ensuring the vaccines are available worldwide. In the past 10 years, we've already seen outbreaks of things like measles from anti-vax moms allowing community vaccination rates to drop, and it is a lot harder to knock misinformation out of somebody's head once it takes root than to prevent them from falling for nonsense. They, too, individualize the risk and then cause outbreaks that affect more people than just themselves. To beat this, we have to convince people to stop being fearful of medicine that seems extremely effective and to stop perceiving the pandemic as politicized. This is a threat and we can kick its ass, but we have to be all-in on this. It's how we can protect even the people who cannot get the vaccines (due to vaccine component allergy or other immune conditions).

I really don't know how else to put the effectiveness of vaccines other than: in my grandparents' generation they had multiple sibling deaths to disease and lingering bodily damage from polio, while in my parents' generation those same diseases had vaccines and they lived through smallpox being eradicated in the wild. I am incredibly optimistic about these new mRNA vaccines not because of "brainwashed public health puppets" but because vaccination has absolutely kicked ass as a preventative public health strategy. 

The more we individualize the risk the more exposed we are collectively. America is a country that pushes individualism to the absolute extreme, and one component of that is a marked distrust of experts. Experts exist because we should want people who can give us information without us needing to be competent enough in that discipline to make those determinations. Not everything is intuitive, and naive intuition can lead us astray. Sometimes we have to say "Okay, this is about as educated as I can get in this area. And even now, I may not be competent to analyze the data I'm looking at and come to useful conclusions." It's okay to not know something as long as you know who to go to for that information when you need it. Otherwise you just feel helpless. But this isn't a situation where we are helpless. Public health organizations all over accept the effectiveness and safety of these vaccines, and there's really no way in which getting vaccinated can be some sort of scam. 

The main people who are scamming this pandemic are the opinion-havers who repeatedly inundate their audience with discredited information, because their ad revenue thrives on stoking outrage and encouraging people to believe their behavior only affects them. But that's garbage. We're social. We live in communities, and we do things for the good of communities. It's kinda the same reason we don't just take a dump in the middle of the store and instead hold it until we find a bathroom. You could be gross and unsanitary, but you're not. Is it because you'll get banned from the store? Because it's too undignified? Those may be the first shameful feelings that come to mind, but ultimately it's because it's not the environment you want to cultivate. You want a poop-free public experience, and you expect everyone else does too.

-Lems

[Kevin]

Second off, seriously?  Does it really matter that much if someone had an underlying condition that made COVID worse on not for them?  They still died to being infected by COVID so it's 100% COVID that is the cause.  Just because someone has Heart Disease and get pneumonia and they die from pneumonia doesn't mean that they didn't die from pneumonia because they had Heart Disease and were more likely to die because of it.  The cause of death is still pneumonia.  Just like in the COVID deaths being 590k+ deaths, people still died from COVID, just because they had an underlying condition that made them more susceptible DOES NOT MEAN that they didn't die from COVID.

I agree with what you are saying here, but I heard news stories and testimonials of domestic homicides committed during the lock down where the deceased tested positive for COVID and was rung up as a COVID death. There is quite a bit of evidence (not conspiracy sites, but actual evidence I am certain you are aware of) pointing to hospitals getting paid tens of thousands for each COVID death they clocked in, so I can see why many hospitals misappropriated the cause of death for anyone who had COVID in their system when the died. FactCheck.org

When I was in the hospital with my broken arm, that crooked hospital I was in kept my case in legislative hell when they knew I needed my external fixator removed and my bone plated, but despite having openings, they kept me in limbo for several months until just after my insurance expired in December knowing full well I was getting an insurance more favorable to them so they could charge more. Fucking crooks! They then kept sending additional bills every month for nickel and dime BS related to that one surgery which went on for roughly six months! They were evil crooked and only interested in their bottom line, despite having fantastic doctors! I do not have a single doubt in my mind that when you run a hospital like a business, those in charge will be making business decisions, and that means falsely raking up COVID-19 deaths to increase the bottom line. How much of an effect did this have on the reported COVID deaths? I really do not know, but seeing the CDC say 94% of COVID deaths were not directly caused by COVID... well you can say it gets me concerned that greed might be trumping ethics.

If you want an easy to follow explanation for where a lot of the "Someone who really died from X was marked as dying from COVID" came from just give a listen to this episode of Sawbones. There are other sources, heck the FactCheck you linked even states that hospitals aren't really over counting, and the payments they get are for documented treatments, not just listing them as COVID. But anyway, the Sawbones episode just explains things in terms that don't require statistical analysis and also gives the WHY for where some of the misunderstanding came from. That's why I recommend it.

Also Quark's tone may have been harsh, but his post does help. It provides a way to perform a "sanity check" on numbers you get. Like you say, how do you know you can trust a source. Well checking that a claim they make is reasonable is one step. If you hear 3 million people died from this new fangle frozen sriracha introduced earlier this year, how can you try and check if that is right or wrong? Well looking at year over year death totals from all sources can help. If there were 58 million total deaths in 2019, and only 59 million total deaths in 2020 then you can go, hmm that 3 million does seem off since there are only 1 million more total so where are these 3 million from? It doesn't prove it wrong, because the detail breakdown could show that there were 2 million less deaths from ice cream because everything we did in response to dealing with with the frozen sriracha epidemic meant that ice cream related deaths were way down. Or you may see that we went from 58 million total to 62 million total. So that 3 million frozen sriracha deaths that we never had before does seem like it's plausible and again looking at some of the breakdowns helps there too. If you aren't good with statistics, then use other methods to look at the information. That is the value in what Quark posted. If you want to take issue with his tone and statements causing you to not want to read what he posted, well I could get into the traps you fell into with your original post and several of your follow-ups that would make people not want to read what you wrote either.

To stay more focused on your first question, and provide another piece of information that hasn't already been covered. You need to factor in vaccine effectiveness, because while these vaccines based on all the sources I trust are quite good they are not perfect. You can be vaccinated and still get COVID. Post recovery re-infection rates are a factor as well. Data on that is still being collected, but just because you got COVID doesn't mean you are 100% immune to getting it again. So when all that get factored in along with infection rates, asymptomatic transmission rates, all the other factors that make your head swim, the 80% number you had in the first post is the target I tend to trust. Since that number factors in the concerns I already mentioned, then yes a simple Number of people fully vaccinated + number of people who had COVID-19 already > 268,000,000 US Citizens is probably pretty close. Keep in mind sourcing those numbers and not double counting anyone is likely difficult too. So there are probably people who had COVID who got both shots too so they will show up in both counts. That isn't something being done intentionally or maliciously. People who had it may not report they did when they get vaccinated, etc.

Personally I don't think the US will ever get there, I'm pissed about that because it really isn't hard to get there but I'm trying to stay even keeled in this post. Of course if even if the US reaches community immunity (wishful thinking on my part that we could change the term for herd immunity) we still need the world to get there and that still poses logistical problems. I freaking love the mRNA vaccines but cold chain supply is not simple. So while the decades of work that have gotten us to the point where we can use that tech for vaccines is awesome, the temperature requirements are still a problem.

And yes I got dose 2, 3 days ago, that was earliest I could get it. So it's not like the US got all the logistics sorted super quick and tidy yet either.

I also hope that eventually we don't have to wear masks by default, but I do hope that normalizing wearing a mask when you feel a little off is here to stay. I don't think it will be in the US, for again what I feel are mostly stupid reasons, but it's such a simple thing that would help. Is it perfect or a silver bullet, of course not, asymptomatic spread is still going to happen, masks don't completely stop spread they just help minimize it, and all the other things. But I'm not just talking COVID here. If everyone who just felt 99% their normal self for whatever reason wore a mask, flu and common cold rates would drop. Both of those things suck. They don't suck as much as SARS-COV-2, but they suck and cutting down them would just be nicer for everyone, and something as simple as putting on a mask in public when you feel a little off but aren't able to self isolate really could impact it.  Hell I only started doing that back in 2017, wish I would have done it sooner and really wish it was normalized and everyone would just do it.

[eppie]

Just some remarks:

-yes CoVID kills but it is unmistakenly true that underlying health problems are important. Under 50 with good health and normal weight makes your chances of dying from Covid are almost 0.
(i am not giving an opinion or want to downplay this crisis but covid is not like measles, polio or ebola)

-herd immunity is nice, but covid will behave like normal flue or cold.....mutations so every year we will get it back. However death rates will go down because the risc groups can get vaccinated every year....just like with normal flue. (remember that in many countries, like the netherlands in normal years most risc group members are vaccinated.....so death rates for normal flue would be much higher without vaccins).

-i will get vaccinated because we are almost forced (because otherwise I will have issues with travelling for holidays with my family and work). Not because I think I need it.

-I think most people really trivialize this enforcement of governments, not looking at constitutional rights and so.I think we have to be really careful to change our society in which governments can decide about vaccinating their people and giving those with vaccins more rights than those without.

-in the case of Covid, healthy diets (meat and sugar tax etc.) will (in the future) save more lives than lockdowns or vaccinations.

-when looking at numbers care has to be taken. India and Brazil are not on top in the world with regards to deaths per million inhabitants.

-

[Jester]

-when looking at numbers care has to be taken. India and Brazil are not on top in the world with regards to deaths per million inhabitants.

This is not correct, at least not at the moment. In terms of deaths per million at the moment, Brazil is very high (about 11 per million per day, or something like 2,500 deaths per day) only exceeded by its neighbours in the southern cone of South America. (This is likely a seasonal thing, as they are just entering into their winter, whereas most countries in the north are just coming up on summer.) India is lower, but still has now exceeded the United States at 3 per million per day, or about 4,000 deaths per day, though the pandemic is only just getting started there.

-Jester

[Bolty]

-i will get vaccinated because we are almost forced (because otherwise I will have issues with travelling for holidays with my family and work). Not because I think I need it.

-I think most people really trivialize this enforcement of governments, not looking at constitutional rights and so.I think we have to be really careful to change our society in which governments can decide about vaccinating their people and giving those with vaccins more rights than those without.

So eppie, I found your first sentence above quite telling.  There are four "I"s in it, and one "my".  One of the most frustrating things about anti-vaxxers that educated people deal with is that concept of "me" and "I", in that such people feel they're being forced to do something that they don't need to, and will search high and low for any excuse to justify that line of thinking.

The societal benefits of vaccines are tremendous.  They allow for the eradication of diseases that kill people.  Getting a vaccine is as much about protecting yourself as it is protecting everyone you ever encounter as you go through your life.  It's an acknowledgement that you are a part of a society that functions better when people aren't randomly dying to preventable illnesses.  In short, it's about thinking beyond yourself, which is difficult for a segment of the American population to do thanks to our society's focus on individualism over all else.

To think that my grandmother-in-law might die because you felt getting vaccinated - something incredibly simple, safe, and free, was unnecessary - is quite frankly enraging.  It can be difficult for people like myself to not devolve into frothing rage over such self-centered idealism.

As for your second paragraph, I would hope that my government would marginalize those who show they simply do not care about their fellow man.  Becoming a social pariah with diminished rights is absolutely a deserved state for these people, just as placing a murderer in prison is.  If you prove that you care so little about the health of the society you live in, so be it.

[eppie]

-when looking at numbers care has to be taken. India and Brazil are not on top in the world with regards to deaths per million inhabitants.

This is not correct, at least not at the moment. In terms of deaths per million at the moment, Brazil is very high (about 11 per million per day, or something like 2,500 deaths per day) only exceeded by its neighbours in the southern cone of South America. (This is likely a seasonal thing, as they are just entering into their winter, whereas most countries in the north are just coming up on summer.) India is lower, but still has now exceeded the United States at 3 per million per day, or about 4,000 deaths per day, though the pandemic is only just getting started there.

-Jester

HI Jester,
I meant total casualties per million since the beginning of the pandemic.

[eppie]

-i will get vaccinated because we are almost forced (because otherwise I will have issues with travelling for holidays with my family and work). Not because I think I need it.

-I think most people really trivialize this enforcement of governments, not looking at constitutional rights and so.I think we have to be really careful to change our society in which governments can decide about vaccinating their people and giving those with vaccins more rights than those without.

So eppie, I found your first sentence above quite telling.  There are four "I"s in it, and one "my".  One of the most frustrating things about anti-vaxxers that educated people deal with is that concept of "me" and "I", in that such people feel they're being forced to do something that they don't need to, and will search high and low for any excuse to justify that line of thinking.

The societal benefits of vaccines are tremendous.  They allow for the eradication of diseases that kill people.  Getting a vaccine is as much about protecting yourself as it is protecting everyone you ever encounter as you go through your life.  It's an acknowledgement that you are a part of a society that functions better when people aren't randomly dying to preventable illnesses.  In short, it's about thinking beyond yourself, which is difficult for a segment of the American population to do thanks to our society's focus on individualism over all else.

To think that my grandmother-in-law might die because you felt getting vaccinated - something incredibly simple, safe, and free, was unnecessary - is quite frankly enraging.  It can be difficult for people like myself to not devolve into frothing rage over such self-centered idealism.

As for your second paragraph, I would hope that my government would marginalize those who show they simply do not care about their fellow man.  Becoming a social pariah with diminished rights is absolutely a deserved state for these people, just as placing a murderer in prison is.  If you prove that you care so little about the health of the society you live in, so be it.

Bolty,

I am no anti-vaxxer. I have had all my vaxxins, and also my kids got all of theirs. I even have taken a vaccin against mexican flu some years ago because at that time that was going around and contrary to Covid that was very dangerous for kids (and mine were to young to get vaccinated.

I am not happy about the words you use to describe me.
-I am vegeratian (not for myself but for a better planet for our children)
-I drive as liitle car as possible even though it is more difficult for myself but again I do this for the greater good. etc.

With regards to Covid; me taking a vaccin (when it is possible to do so) doesn't influence your grandmother at all. I am sure she is older then me and I am sure she has had to opportunity to get the vaccin. Also the vaccin doesn't take covid away....it will stay around most likely and just like the normal flue cause the death of many people every year. But again Covid is a disease that gives people the last push. In the Netherlands the average age of people dying from covid is still around our average life expectancy.

To give you an example: in te Netherlands (pop. 17 million)we have somewhere around 160 people under 40 dying from covid. Likely around 95% of them had heavy underlying issues....so undergoing chemo therapy, diabetes etc. Probably less then 5 people below the age of 40 died from how no underlying issues were known. Now that being very bad for those people or their family is still nothing execptional in terms of diseases and causes of death.

If we would make sure people start eating healthy and dpoing sports bringing down obesity number drastically this would save more lives than a world wide vaccination campaign. (plus saves a lot of lives from people dying of obesity related diseases. So instead of telling me I am only thinking about myself wouldn't you say that people who voite against sugar and meat tax are to blame more? The companies that flood our markets with unhealthy foods? And I can go  on for a while.




Covid is here to stay and will take lives every season just like normal flue. So if you want really to stop this you should enforce yearly flu and covid vaccination for the whole world population.
Now I am not a libertarian like e.g. kandrathe but even for me this goes way to far......and most constitutions agree with me.

Point remains....me getting vaccinated this year will not help a single person. You and everyone else stop eating meat.....now that will saves millions of lives yearly.

I am fine to disagree on this one but please don't suggest I do things because it is better for me personally. (I am not scared to get Covid but I am also not scared to get a vaccin.....it is self determination that I'm worried about).

[eppie]

To think that my grandmother-in-law might die because you felt getting vaccinated - something incredibly simple, safe, and free, was unnecessary - is quite frankly enraging.  It can be difficult for people like myself to not devolve into frothing rage over such self-centered idealism.

When I read your post again I just think by myself you were blinded with angre when you wrote it because it is ridiculous.

I have been reading a lot about this issue. And no, not anti-vaxxer blogs etc. but philosophical papers from scientists.
They often the discuss the way we have made our society and what we expect from it.
Without getting personal I assume your grandmother  in law is at least 80 (I don't have any grandparents anymore....because yes....people died also before Covid).....so you are not at all taking into account the fact that in most countries in this world the average life expectancy is far below 80?

Have you seen that the countries with the lowest death toll from Covid are 3r world countries? (besides some exception like china, and various island states)
So there our countries were nobody would even dream of reaching the age of 80. Also countries were in general obesity is a minor problem.
Now the west says it is scared of mutations etc. so it is necessary we vaccinate all the people in those countries as well. Sobasically to save ourselves we are going back to colonialism again.

This on its own is worth a discussion.
Maybe we could help them first dealing with the more than 100 thousand kids below 5 who die yearly from measles.

[Jester]

-when looking at numbers care has to be taken. India and Brazil are not on top in the world with regards to deaths per million inhabitants.

This is not correct, at least not at the moment. In terms of deaths per million at the moment, Brazil is very high (about 11 per million per day, or something like 2,500 deaths per day) only exceeded by its neighbours in the southern cone of South America. (This is likely a seasonal thing, as they are just entering into their winter, whereas most countries in the north are just coming up on summer.) India is lower, but still has now exceeded the United States at 3 per million per day, or about 4,000 deaths per day, though the pandemic is only just getting started there.

-Jester

HI Jester,
I meant total casualties per million since the beginning of the pandemic.

The pandemic is ongoing. Why would this be something to keep in mind? All this will track is where it hit first. When all is said and done, Brazil and India will have hundreds of thousands, if not millions of deaths, unless something rather surprising happens. Brazil is already 2nd highest cumulative deaths-per-million, and will no doubt overtake Italy shortly. India likely will not, but even a "modest" death toll is millions of dead people.

-Jester