Herd immunity - are we getting close?
Discussion
Sorry for another Covid thread. Whilst many are are panicking about this new strain, part of me thinks it will help end all of this sooner
Assuming the survival rate is 99.8% (is this right??) from Covid, with 67,000 deaths that would imply 33.5m people have had the Virus. Almost 50%.
When you break it down into regions, places like Liverpool are over 70%, and unsurprisingly cases are now very low.
Surely this new strain will mean herd immunity will occur faster, and in many places in UK must be getting close to achieving it.
Together with the vaccine it can’t be long until cases drop significantly.
What am I missing?
Assuming the survival rate is 99.8% (is this right??) from Covid, with 67,000 deaths that would imply 33.5m people have had the Virus. Almost 50%.
When you break it down into regions, places like Liverpool are over 70%, and unsurprisingly cases are now very low.
Surely this new strain will mean herd immunity will occur faster, and in many places in UK must be getting close to achieving it.
Together with the vaccine it can’t be long until cases drop significantly.
What am I missing?
I did actually wonder this myself. I guess the difficulty is knowing reasonably what percentage have already had it. I think that’s difficult to estimate, given that official statistics seem to be published to suit an agenda or support a lockdown, making the raw numbers a bit unreliable.
matt21 said:
Sorry for another Covid thread. Whilst many are are panicking about this new strain, part of me thinks it will help end all of this sooner
Assuming the survival rate is 99.8% (is this right??) from Covid, with 67,000 deaths that would imply 33.5m people have had the Virus. Almost 50%.
When you break it down into regions, places like Liverpool are over 70%, and unsurprisingly cases are now very low.
Surely this new strain will mean herd immunity will occur faster, and in many places in UK must be getting close to achieving it.
Together with the vaccine it can’t be long until cases drop significantly.
What am I missing?
Think you’re missing the part about the more copies, the more variants, the more likely some variants can evade the immune system better. Assuming the survival rate is 99.8% (is this right??) from Covid, with 67,000 deaths that would imply 33.5m people have had the Virus. Almost 50%.
When you break it down into regions, places like Liverpool are over 70%, and unsurprisingly cases are now very low.
Surely this new strain will mean herd immunity will occur faster, and in many places in UK must be getting close to achieving it.
Together with the vaccine it can’t be long until cases drop significantly.
What am I missing?
Those replicate.
Natural selection.
matt21 said:
Sorry for another Covid thread. Whilst many are are panicking about this new strain, part of me thinks it will help end all of this sooner
Assuming the survival rate is 99.8% (is this right??) from Covid, with 67,000 deaths that would imply 33.5m people have had the Virus. Almost 50%.
When you break it down into regions, places like Liverpool are over 70%, and unsurprisingly cases are now very low.
Surely this new strain will mean herd immunity will occur faster, and in many places in UK must be getting close to achieving it.
L
Together with the vaccine it can’t be long until cases drop significantly.
What am I missing?
Probably the fact that 67,000 people have not died of Covid. I am sure someone will be along to say that 67,000 have died which is a fact that I accept. However, in the same way that I cannot categorically confirm the number that didn’t die of COVID, they cannot categorically confirm the numbers that have died purely of Covid. Assuming the survival rate is 99.8% (is this right??) from Covid, with 67,000 deaths that would imply 33.5m people have had the Virus. Almost 50%.
When you break it down into regions, places like Liverpool are over 70%, and unsurprisingly cases are now very low.
Surely this new strain will mean herd immunity will occur faster, and in many places in UK must be getting close to achieving it.
L
Together with the vaccine it can’t be long until cases drop significantly.
What am I missing?
There's no conclusive evidence that infection provides further immunity. There are many infections where this isn't the case, we just don't have the evidence either way at this time.
Specifically to Covid, there are a few dozen cases of proven reinfection, and over a thousand suspected cases. But these people may be immunocompromised, or perhaps different strains (though confirmed cases are all through genetic testing).
Specifically to Covid, there are a few dozen cases of proven reinfection, and over a thousand suspected cases. But these people may be immunocompromised, or perhaps different strains (though confirmed cases are all through genetic testing).
The virus is one problem.
The way we react is another problem.
We could all get up tomorrow and pretend it didn’t exist and let nature take its course.
Or we could all lock down for 1 month and let it die out globally.
Or an infinite number of variations in between.
Right now this pandemic is only a bad thing because the formal reaction is lacking.
Ie, the UK still can’t test in decent volumes or quickly enough to basically isolate those infected.
If you could isolate infected you’d be out of this epidemic in weeks.
If we’d put half as much money into effective mass testing as we have a vaccine, we probably wouldn’t need a vaccine.
The way we react is another problem.
We could all get up tomorrow and pretend it didn’t exist and let nature take its course.
Or we could all lock down for 1 month and let it die out globally.
Or an infinite number of variations in between.
Right now this pandemic is only a bad thing because the formal reaction is lacking.
Ie, the UK still can’t test in decent volumes or quickly enough to basically isolate those infected.
If you could isolate infected you’d be out of this epidemic in weeks.
If we’d put half as much money into effective mass testing as we have a vaccine, we probably wouldn’t need a vaccine.
rfisher said:
We may well be getting close to a rolling pandemic, sadly.
Ultimately CV19 will become attenuated and endemic across the world.
Getting to that point is going to be the tricky bit.
We've only just begun.
Happy holidays everyone
I assume this can only happen if people get reinfected? Otherwise we will all get it once and then it’s done. Especially with how virulent it appears to be.Ultimately CV19 will become attenuated and endemic across the world.
Getting to that point is going to be the tricky bit.
We've only just begun.
Happy holidays everyone
Mr Whippy said:
The virus is one problem.
The way we react is another problem.
We could all get up tomorrow and pretend it didn’t exist and let nature take its course.
Or we could all lock down for 1 month and let it die out globally.
Or an infinite number of variations in between.
Right now this pandemic is only a bad thing because the formal reaction is lacking.
Ie, the UK still can’t test in decent volumes or quickly enough to basically isolate those infected.
If you could isolate infected you’d be out of this epidemic in weeks.
If we’d put half as much money into effective mass testing as we have a vaccine, we probably wouldn’t need a vaccine.
.The way we react is another problem.
We could all get up tomorrow and pretend it didn’t exist and let nature take its course.
Or we could all lock down for 1 month and let it die out globally.
Or an infinite number of variations in between.
Right now this pandemic is only a bad thing because the formal reaction is lacking.
Ie, the UK still can’t test in decent volumes or quickly enough to basically isolate those infected.
If you could isolate infected you’d be out of this epidemic in weeks.
If we’d put half as much money into effective mass testing as we have a vaccine, we probably wouldn’t need a vaccine.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC21304...
This might make interesting reading for you. In 1969 a group of 12 men had spent 17 weeks isolated at a remote Antarctic base when half developed symptoms of the common cold with no apparent causative agent.
Nature cannot be suppressed. Herd immunity is the only solution and one that we can't be far from achieving unless the stats have been addled. Locking everybody up for a month would not eradicate the virus.
Those is power who are trying to muddy the water by saying we can't be sure about reinfection or how long immunity lasts need stringing up. If reinfection or '6 month immunity' were actually a thing we'd have seen huge numbers of people picking up the virus for second time by now. It hasn't happened.
Edited by GMT13 on Sunday 20th December 19:05
matt21 said:
Sorry for another Covid thread. Whilst many are are panicking about this new strain, part of me thinks it will help end all of this sooner
Assuming the survival rate is 99.8% (is this right??) from Covid, with 67,000 deaths that would imply 33.5m people have had the Virus. Almost 50%.
When you break it down into regions, places like Liverpool are over 70%, and unsurprisingly cases are now very low.
Surely this new strain will mean herd immunity will occur faster, and in many places in UK must be getting close to achieving it.
Together with the vaccine it can’t be long until cases drop significantly.
What am I missing?
Do you seriously think half the country has had this now ? Assuming the survival rate is 99.8% (is this right??) from Covid, with 67,000 deaths that would imply 33.5m people have had the Virus. Almost 50%.
When you break it down into regions, places like Liverpool are over 70%, and unsurprisingly cases are now very low.
Surely this new strain will mean herd immunity will occur faster, and in many places in UK must be getting close to achieving it.
Together with the vaccine it can’t be long until cases drop significantly.
What am I missing?
I can’t see it as being more than 10 to 15 percent. With the testing regimes in place now, I’d think that far and away most new cases are being recorded, by no means all, but most. Tests are easy to get, administer and are at no cost and available to all who need one now.
50 percent, i can’t see that, no where near. Ask yourself if 50 percent of the people you know have had it? My circle of friends and acquaintances, work colleagues, customers etc, it is about 3 to 5 percent I reckon, but acknowledge that I may not know the full picture from all.
I'm sure I'm missing something as well, the government tell us 10's of thousands of people each day have cases of covid but then they tell us we will never get to herd immunity because not enough people have caught it.
The way I see it is today we probably did 400,000 tests and got 35,000 cases, not everyone they test are the same people every day and those figures seem pretty consistent. So it seems that for every 400,000 people there are 35,000 cases. That would work out at over 5 million cases in this Country today, don't see why thats not an accurate analysis.
It has obviously been like this since the start and people generally have it for a month or so, so there must have been at least 5 million cases a month since March at least. It was bad in March, April and May before it started to tail off again so lets say 15 million in the first 3 months had it, then another couple of million in the summer until September when it started to get bad again. September, October, November and December add another 20 million to the total.
I recon at least 40 million have had this by now, if not then the daily tested cases of 35,000 is a big load of hairy b
ks.
The way I see it is today we probably did 400,000 tests and got 35,000 cases, not everyone they test are the same people every day and those figures seem pretty consistent. So it seems that for every 400,000 people there are 35,000 cases. That would work out at over 5 million cases in this Country today, don't see why thats not an accurate analysis.
It has obviously been like this since the start and people generally have it for a month or so, so there must have been at least 5 million cases a month since March at least. It was bad in March, April and May before it started to tail off again so lets say 15 million in the first 3 months had it, then another couple of million in the summer until September when it started to get bad again. September, October, November and December add another 20 million to the total.
I recon at least 40 million have had this by now, if not then the daily tested cases of 35,000 is a big load of hairy b
ks.dmahon said:
rfisher said:
We may well be getting close to a rolling pandemic, sadly.
Ultimately CV19 will become attenuated and endemic across the world.
Getting to that point is going to be the tricky bit.
We've only just begun.
Happy holidays everyone
I assume this can only happen if people get reinfected? Otherwise we will all get it once and then it’s done. Especially with how virulent it appears to be.Ultimately CV19 will become attenuated and endemic across the world.
Getting to that point is going to be the tricky bit.
We've only just begun.
Happy holidays everyone
This means that they produce a large variety of viral RNA types during an infection.
Many of the new variants will be genetically 'weaker' than the original virus, but some will be 'stronger'.
Ultimately a balance will emerge whereby the virus gets to make more of itself quickly and easily by not causing too much damage to its hosts.
While this process is evolving, we may well find that previously infected individuals catch a variant type.
Vaccinated individuals may also still be able to be reinfected.
The real concern is the emergence, for a short period of time, of a variant with much higher lethality than the current types.
So we are in a potentially dangerous situation and we need to respond accordingly.
That can be achieved either by consensus or force.
Currently we don't have either and the virus is free to march on.
scottyp123 said:
I'm sure I'm missing something as well, the government tell us 10's of thousands of people each day have cases of covid but then they tell us we will never get to herd immunity because not enough people have caught it.
The way I see it is today we probably did 400,000 tests and got 35,000 cases, not everyone they test are the same people every day and those figures seem pretty consistent. So it seems that for every 400,000 people there are 35,000 cases. That would work out at over 5 million cases in this Country today, don't see why thats not an accurate analysis.
It has obviously been like this since the start and people generally have it for a month or so, so there must have been at least 5 million cases a month since March at least. It was bad in March, April and May before it started to tail off again so lets say 15 million in the first 3 months had it, then another couple of million in the summer until September when it started to get bad again. September, October, November and December add another 20 million to the total.
I recon at least 40 million have had this by now, if not then the daily tested cases of 35,000 is a big load of hairy bks.
The tests aren't undertake at random so figures cannot be extrapolated in that way. Tests are undertaken generally on the seriously ill, people showing symptoms or anyone going into hospital for planned procedures or other illnesses. Therefore testing will pick up a higher percentage than the overall population prevalence.The way I see it is today we probably did 400,000 tests and got 35,000 cases, not everyone they test are the same people every day and those figures seem pretty consistent. So it seems that for every 400,000 people there are 35,000 cases. That would work out at over 5 million cases in this Country today, don't see why thats not an accurate analysis.
It has obviously been like this since the start and people generally have it for a month or so, so there must have been at least 5 million cases a month since March at least. It was bad in March, April and May before it started to tail off again so lets say 15 million in the first 3 months had it, then another couple of million in the summer until September when it started to get bad again. September, October, November and December add another 20 million to the total.
I recon at least 40 million have had this by now, if not then the daily tested cases of 35,000 is a big load of hairy b
ks.poo at Paul's said:
Do you seriously think half the country has had this now ?
I can’t see it as being more than 10 to 15 percent. With the testing regimes in place now, I’d think that far and away most new cases are being recorded, by no means all, but most. Tests are easy to get, administer and are at no cost and available to all who need one now.
50 percent, i can’t see that, no where near. Ask yourself if 50 percent of the people you know have had it? My circle of friends and acquaintances, work colleagues, customers etc, it is about 3 to 5 percent I reckon, but acknowledge that I may not know the full picture from all.
80% don't show symptoms. If you're saying 5% of your acquaintances have had it (showing symptoms) then it's likely that 25% of your acquaintances have actually had it.I can’t see it as being more than 10 to 15 percent. With the testing regimes in place now, I’d think that far and away most new cases are being recorded, by no means all, but most. Tests are easy to get, administer and are at no cost and available to all who need one now.
50 percent, i can’t see that, no where near. Ask yourself if 50 percent of the people you know have had it? My circle of friends and acquaintances, work colleagues, customers etc, it is about 3 to 5 percent I reckon, but acknowledge that I may not know the full picture from all.
As you're somebody who is particularly frightened by the virus I bet you've rounded your figure down slightly. With the estimated IFR being 0.25%, 60,000 deaths would mean 24 million people that have had it (36% of the population).
jayymannon said:
scottyp123 said:
I'm sure I'm missing something as well, the government tell us 10's of thousands of people each day have cases of covid but then they tell us we will never get to herd immunity because not enough people have caught it.
The way I see it is today we probably did 400,000 tests and got 35,000 cases, not everyone they test are the same people every day and those figures seem pretty consistent. So it seems that for every 400,000 people there are 35,000 cases. That would work out at over 5 million cases in this Country today, don't see why thats not an accurate analysis.
It has obviously been like this since the start and people generally have it for a month or so, so there must have been at least 5 million cases a month since March at least. It was bad in March, April and May before it started to tail off again so lets say 15 million in the first 3 months had it, then another couple of million in the summer until September when it started to get bad again. September, October, November and December add another 20 million to the total.
I recon at least 40 million have had this by now, if not then the daily tested cases of 35,000 is a big load of hairy bks.
The tests aren't undertake at random so figures cannot be extrapolated in that way. Tests are undertaken generally on the seriously ill, people showing symptoms or anyone going into hospital for planned procedures or other illnesses. Therefore testing will pick up a higher percentage than the overall population prevalence.The way I see it is today we probably did 400,000 tests and got 35,000 cases, not everyone they test are the same people every day and those figures seem pretty consistent. So it seems that for every 400,000 people there are 35,000 cases. That would work out at over 5 million cases in this Country today, don't see why thats not an accurate analysis.
It has obviously been like this since the start and people generally have it for a month or so, so there must have been at least 5 million cases a month since March at least. It was bad in March, April and May before it started to tail off again so lets say 15 million in the first 3 months had it, then another couple of million in the summer until September when it started to get bad again. September, October, November and December add another 20 million to the total.
I recon at least 40 million have had this by now, if not then the daily tested cases of 35,000 is a big load of hairy b
ks.As far as I'm aware, the testing centres are designed primarily for people with symptoms. Therefore a large amount of the people being tested every day will have symtoms. The severity of the symptoms and whether they can drive or not is not really relevant as SARS-CoV-2 carriage doesn't cause severe illness in the majority of those carrying it.
Obviously, as I mentioned in my post, other people are also being tested, for example anyone that is admitted to hospital is tested, as is anybody coming into hospital for a planned procedure. But a large amount of the people being tested every day are symptomatic and will therefore skew the stats when extrapolating to the population at large.
The ONS is conducting on-going surveys to estimate the population positivity rate.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunit...
For example, in the week 6-12th December they estimated that 1 in 95 people had COVID-19. These figures are limited by the sensitivity and specificity of the test used. For example, PCR tests can be subject to inhibition by factors such as the presence of blood and other substances such as creams, lotions etc.
Therefore, the true level is likely slightly higher.
Obviously, as I mentioned in my post, other people are also being tested, for example anyone that is admitted to hospital is tested, as is anybody coming into hospital for a planned procedure. But a large amount of the people being tested every day are symptomatic and will therefore skew the stats when extrapolating to the population at large.
The ONS is conducting on-going surveys to estimate the population positivity rate.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunit...
For example, in the week 6-12th December they estimated that 1 in 95 people had COVID-19. These figures are limited by the sensitivity and specificity of the test used. For example, PCR tests can be subject to inhibition by factors such as the presence of blood and other substances such as creams, lotions etc.
Therefore, the true level is likely slightly higher.
Interesting in the last couple of days we clicked over 0.1% of the population having now died from this. I’m sure 0.1% was suggested as a fatality rate at one point.
The scenarios as I see it are:
1. Based on what we seem to know about how lethal it is, adding in a bit of Yeadon pre existing immunity and assuming you can’t get it twice, we will smash into a herd immunity wall imminently and cases will drop off a cliff. I suspect this will be evident in Italy or other highly infected countries before us, but we are what top 10/11in the world for deaths by population, so cannot be far behind. This would be a good scenario.
2. The fatality rate is substantially higher, possibly nearer 1% and we’ve got a lot longer to go, maybe the vaccine will catch it up and speed us up
3. Somewhere between the two. Probably the most likely. The virulent strain may accelerate this
4. You can be repeatedly reinfected and we need a different approach.
5. In reality the fatality rate is very high, maybe 80/90% and only 70 or 80 thousand people have actually been infected in the UK, but it’s not that transmissible. The government(s) know this hence the consistent and unbelievable levels of intervention, but they know huge hysteria would ensue if they revealed it, so this is the way of steady compliance. The PCR test is wildly inaccurate (which helps them keep up the story) and really we’ve given positive CV-19 results on 2,000,000 cases of colds and flu. Doesn’t add up though, the deaths would all be in clusters.
The scenarios as I see it are:
1. Based on what we seem to know about how lethal it is, adding in a bit of Yeadon pre existing immunity and assuming you can’t get it twice, we will smash into a herd immunity wall imminently and cases will drop off a cliff. I suspect this will be evident in Italy or other highly infected countries before us, but we are what top 10/11in the world for deaths by population, so cannot be far behind. This would be a good scenario.
2. The fatality rate is substantially higher, possibly nearer 1% and we’ve got a lot longer to go, maybe the vaccine will catch it up and speed us up
3. Somewhere between the two. Probably the most likely. The virulent strain may accelerate this
4. You can be repeatedly reinfected and we need a different approach.
5. In reality the fatality rate is very high, maybe 80/90% and only 70 or 80 thousand people have actually been infected in the UK, but it’s not that transmissible. The government(s) know this hence the consistent and unbelievable levels of intervention, but they know huge hysteria would ensue if they revealed it, so this is the way of steady compliance. The PCR test is wildly inaccurate (which helps them keep up the story) and really we’ve given positive CV-19 results on 2,000,000 cases of colds and flu. Doesn’t add up though, the deaths would all be in clusters.
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