Coronavirus $hit be getting real

[Valkorado]

Willow: The bottom line is that if I'm healthy I am doing no one else or
            myself any good by wearing a mask.

John Sette, the former chairman of the Morris County Republican Committee,
said Mr. Trump appeared “100% normal” at the [Thursday afternoon] fundraiser
at Mr. Trump’s golf club in Bedminster. - Wall Street Journal

Hi Willow. Trump tweeted that his Covid test came back positive at
1:00am Friday morning. Do you get tested everyday?

I hate the mask. I bought a box of 50 right before InZane. I tried to
slog down the hall at the motel with one on, but didn't go back to my
room to get one on the many times I forgot to leave with one. I wear one
at the grocery store and at Home Depot. I put one on at the Vet yesterday.
I was re-using them some during the summer, a couple of days in
my closed-up car in the sun probably made them "safe", but how
could I really know that?

I do have access to kooks-R-us.org, so I can do my own Internet-based
research, but I'm not 100% confident with that, so I'm going with "perhaps
we can be contagious without knowing it" and will continue to try and wear
a mask when forced to go shoulder-to-shoulder with the general public. I
don't think it protects me at all.

-Mike "I still have and use several bottles of VRCC hand sanitizer..."

I agree with this.

Kinda how I have attempted to explain faith to atheists.  Does the armor of God protect me?  I don't think it hurts.  If I'm right it'll work out well.  If I'm wrong no harm, no foul to myself or anyone else.

That said I'm in no rush to meet my maker.  When I'm required to mask up I wear n-95s - - ya the kind with no exhale vent.    I also bake 'em in the car between uses.

Asymptomatic spread does occur.  This has been established.  Is it as common as that from symptomatic folks?  Probably not.  

Still I'm all for individual choice, UNLESS posted signs state otherwise.  In that case civil disobedience is sheer redneckery, IMHO.

Like Rams, I also hate masking up.   Oh, well.

[Willow]

Willow: The bottom line is that if I'm healthy I am doing no one else or
            myself any good by wearing a mask.

John Sette, the former chairman of the Morris County Republican Committee,
said Mr. Trump appeared “100% normal” at the [Thursday afternoon] fundraiser
at Mr. Trump’s golf club in Bedminster. - Wall Street Journal

Hi Willow. Trump tweeted that his Covid test came back positive at
1:00am Friday morning. Do you get tested everyday?   

Mike, please note I did not say, "if I feel healthy..." or, "if I think I.m healthy...".  I was not focusing on my ability to decide when I need a mask so much as the chance (.03%) if my wearing a mask actually doing some good to someone.

I think the use of hand sanitizer and washing is highly advisable.  I do think we need to stop kidding ourselves that slowing the spread is equal to stopping the virus. 

[..]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8801069/Tourist-sites-heaving-China-amid-Covid-international-travel-restrictions.html

[..]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8801789/Police-set-traffic-stops-major-roads-Madrid-travel-lockdown.html

[Jersey mike]

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/coronavirus-report-trump-steve-scalise


https://republicans-oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/SSOCC-Report-10-2-20.pdf

[Valkorado]

A very informative article here.  Worth reading.

A 'herd mentality' can’t stop the COVID-19 pandemic. Neither can a weak vaccine.
Debates over herd immunity and natural infection arise with every outbreak. Effective vaccination always wins.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/10/natural-herd-immunity-mentality-cannot-stop-coronavirus-weak-vaccine-cvd/

[Jersey mike]

A very informative article here.  Worth reading.

A 'herd mentality' can’t stop the COVID-19 pandemic. Neither can a weak vaccine.
Debates over herd immunity and natural infection arise with every outbreak. Effective vaccination always wins.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/10/natural-herd-immunity-mentality-cannot-stop-coronavirus-weak-vaccine-cvd/

Sorry it’s not letting me read it w/o a subscription. I got about 4 paragraphs and the screen turned opaque and it would not allow me to continue.

[Valkorado]

Sorry had to copy/paste text from National Geographic so there will be, some gobbledygook.  Charts and graphs didn't copy, of course.  Otherwise verbatim.


The history of herd immunity can explain why we need an effective vaccine to beat COVID-19. Above: Edward Jenner (1749-1823) performs his first vaccination against smallpox on James Phipps, a boy of eight, May 14, 1796, oil on canvas.
PAINTING BY ERNES BOARD, DEA PICTURE LIBRARY, GETTY IMAGES
SCIENCECORONAVIRUS COVERAGE

A 'herd mentality' can’t stop the COVID-19 pandemic. Neither can a weak vaccine.
Debates over herd immunity and natural infection arise with every outbreak. Effective vaccination always wins.

10 MINUTE READ
BY NSIKAN AKPAN
PUBLISHED OCTOBER 2, 2020

EARLY DISEASE FIGHTERS, such as Edward Jenner, Louis Pasteur, and William Farr, suspected if enough people were vaccinated, it could eradicate a disease. At the dawn of the 20th century, veterinarians more interested in livestock than people seized on the idea and coined the term “herd immunity.” By the 1920s, clever studies with hundreds of thousands of mice vaulted the idea into the mainstream, stirring optimism that making a fraction of a population immune could forestall a devastating outbreak.

But even the trailblazers researching herd immunity were mystified by how to deploy it in practice. This conundrum has featured in battles against many modern plagues—such as smallpox, polio, and measles. And now it is part of the debate as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to flourish around much of the world.

Some prominent leaders wonder if herd immunity created as people are naturally infected with SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus would be enough to restore society to working order. For evidence, they point to hard-hit epicenters such as New York City, where approximately 20 percent of the residents have been infected and the caseload has been low and steady for months. This sustained recovery must be due to herd protection, they argue.

But based on simple math, past experiences with outbreaks, and emerging evidence from the ongoing pandemic, this claim is a fantasy.

“If we had reached sufficient herd immunity in New York, you would expect incidents to continue going down, not to be holding steady,” says Virginia Pitzer, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health who specializes in the mathematical modeling of how diseases spread.

A vaccine with 50-percent efficacy could spare hundreds of thousands from hospitalizations, chronic health issues, and death—but it couldn’t hit the herd immunity threshold on its own even if everyone took it. The safest bet is a vaccine above 75 percent efficacy.

If 50% 75% 100% of the population receives a vaccine, here's how many susceptible people, infections, survivors, and deaths could exist  100 days later.
No vaccine

93.4% of population has been infected

A vaccine 50% effective

Less than 1% has been infected

A vaccine 80% effective

Less than 1% has been infected

NOTE: Each SEIR scenario includes 1,000 dots. Each dot equals 1,000 people. The model assumes an infection-fatality ratio of 0.75% and a basic reproduction number of 3.0. It also assumes that immunity develops after infection, so does not allow for reinfection, and that a vaccine is the sole intervention among the masses.

SOURCE: PHICOR

The reality is that most of the world—including 90 percent of the United States—remains susceptible to infection by the coronavirus virus, despite the global toll so far. Banking on natural infection to control the outbreak would lead to months, if not years, of a dismaying cycle in which cases subside and then surge. Even if such community-mediated protection were established, it would be constantly eroded by the birth of children and the real possibility that immunity in those previously infected would wane.

Only two infectious diseases have ever been eradicated: the human scourge of smallpox and the cattle-borne germ rinderpest. All other known afflictions—including such Old World pestilences as rabies, leprosy, and bubonic plague—have either been managed through human intervention or remain uncontrolled.

“It's very unlikely that we're going to see elimination of COVID-19 altogether from the population simply through the buildup of natural immunity,” says Pitzer. But if we add a highly effective vaccine on top of that, Pitzer says, “then it is theoretically possible that we could eliminate the virus” or at least control it.

A 237-page report from the National Academy of Medicine, published October 2, lays out how to distribute such a vaccine in an equitable manner—while also showing how hard this process will be. A crucial step will be communicating how good the vaccine needs to be to stop transmission. While major health agencies, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the World Health Organization, say a COVID-19 vaccine should be at least 50-percent effective to be approved, this benchmark would actually be too low to establish protective herd immunity.

“It doesn't mean that a vaccine that's below this certain threshold will not be useful,” says Bruce Y. Lee, professor and executive director of Public Health Computational and Operations Research (PHICOR) at the City University of New York School of Public Health. “But if you want to be in a situation where you don't have to do social distancing and these other things anymore, then the vaccine really needs to be over 80 percent efficacy.”

What we mean when we talk about herd immunity

Herd immunity’s prominence in fighting epidemics can trace its origins to the 1920s and the University of Manchester in England. Inside a lab there, about 15,000 mice per year scurried through what looked like moon bases in miniature. Intricate residential pods—each about a foot wide—were connected by cylindrical tunnels, allowing the rodents to move freely around the Lilliputian cities.

But occasionally, the mouse cities would experience epidemics—ones started intentionally by the project’s leaders, William Whiteman Carlton Topley and Graham Selby Wilson. Members of one city would be exposed to lethal bacteria, while those in a separate city would receive doses of a vaccine along with the dangerous germ. The duo’s findings—published in 1923—demonstrated that immunity in a portion of a population could slow an outbreak and protect otherwise susceptible individuals.

“They called it experimental epidemiology,” says Paul Fine, a professor of communicable disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, who has written extensively about the origins of herd immunity. Topley and Wilson—along with some help from their contemporaries—helped popularize the idea, particularly through a textbook that’s still used by students to this day.

Yet when most people discuss herd immunity today, they’re really talking about what’s known as the “herd threshold theorem.” It’s what scientists are referencing when they say 75 percent of the population needs to be immune against COVID-19 to stop disease transmission, and it’s surprisingly simple to calculate.

Say a germ lands in foreign world, where an entire population is susceptible. And say it becomes clear that one infected person will transmit it to four others on average—a value known as the germ’s basic reproduction number, represented by an R with a subscript zero and thus called R-naught. To flatten the outbreak’s growth, you want a situation where the afflicted can infect just one person out of four.

“Well, that would be a circumstance where three out of the four were immune. He sneezed in four faces, but three of those individuals were immune,” Fine says. Three out of four is three-quarters, meaning a 75-percent threshold is needed to reach herd immunity.

Different viruses have their own reproduction numbers, so each has its own herd immunity threshold. Try the math again for measles, where one case can infect 18 susceptible people, and you get 94 percent. Polio has an R-naught of seven, so its threshold is 85 percent. These percentages serve as the targets for mass vaccination. Achieve them, and enough people in your community will be protected so that an outsider carrying the germ won’t be able to trigger a sustained outbreak.

While the underpinnings for the threshold theorem arose in the early 20th century, British epidemiologist George Macdonald was the first to incorporate the reproduction number, while studying malaria in Africa in the 1950s. It would be on this continent that a blind spot caused by strictly adhering to the concept would soon be discovered.

Why mass vaccination alone couldn’t beat smallpox
As a 16-year-old volunteer firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service, William Foege learned a key principle that would ultimately save millions of people from the scourge of smallpox: “Separate the fuel from the flames, and the fire stops,” Foege writes in his memoir House on Fire.

This mantra stuck with Foege after he joined the agency now known as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1962, and he was eventually stationed in Nigeria as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer.

Three years earlier, the United Nations, World Health Assembly, and the WHO had launched a global eradication campaign against smallpox. The mass vaccination program quickly squelched the disease in Europe and North America, but nearly a decade later, the disease remained endemic in much of Africa, Asia, and South America, with tens of thousands of cases still reported each year. The virus kept finding hideouts—both in rural areas and high-density cities where it could fester—and ultimately threaten disease-free areas given that the vaccine’s immunity only lasted five years.

The tide turned on December 4, 1966, when a missionary in the southeastern Nigerian region of Ogoja radioed Foege to warn of a new possible outbreak. Trekking 90 miles by motorbike, Foege and his smallpox unit confirmed four cases in one village—but immediately faced a dilemma. Standard protocol called for vaccinating everyone in all the villages within a certain radius, but the team didn’t have enough doses. They would need to improvise.

“If we were smallpox viruses bent on immortality, what would we do to extend our family tree?” Foege writes. “The answer of course was to find the nearest susceptible person in which to continue reproduction.”

They opted to track down and vaccinate the individuals most likely to come in contact with the known cases. Dubbed “ring vaccination” or “surveillance-containment,” this strategy helped clear the final strongholds of smallpox over the next eight years.

The philosophy of science is to break down
the walls of ignorance.

The philosophy behind medicine is to use that truth for every individual patient.

The philosophy behind public health is to use that truth for everyone.
WILLIAM FOEGE, FORMER CDC DIRECTOR AND DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR EMERITUS, EMORY UNIVERSITY

It did it by addressing a wrinkle in the herd threshold theorem. That basic equation assumes everyone in a population is equally in contact with one another and spews an infectious virus in the same way.

“The real world violates these assumptions,” says Jeffrey Shaman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Just look at COVID-19. Young adults drive the bulk of the spread in part because they come into contact with more people. (Millennials and Gen Z are spreading coronavirus—but not because of parties and bars.)

This uneven risk of infection—or heterogeneity—creates hot and cool spots of viral spread. If a public health team can cut off the heavy transmitters, they can control an outbreak with fewer doses of a vaccine. That’s a huge advantage—especially when an epidemic nears elimination and mass vaccination becomes less cost effective.

By 1971, an epidemiologist named John Fox began formulating herd immunity models that would better incorporate heterogeneity, and decades later it is still standard practice for public health researchers. The practice is similar to how firefighters clear trees, shrubs, and other flammable debris to encircle a raging wildfire, and it explains why health care workers, first responders, and people in hot spots such as jails will likely be first to receive an approved COVID-19 vaccine.

“By removing the fuel one step ahead of the virus, we had built a fire line,” writes Foege, who went on to serve as CDC director in 1977, the same year smallpox was eradicated from Africa. He is now the co-chair of the panel behind the National Academies report and a distinguished professor emeritus of international health at Emory University in Atlanta.

“The philosophy of science is to break down the walls of ignorance,” Foege said at a October 2 news conference that unveiled the report. “The philosophy behind medicine is to use that truth for every individual patient, but the philosophy behind public health is to use that truth for everyone.”

But his revelation about fire lines also means fewer people overall need to become immune to tamp down on transmission—relative to what’s predicted by the theorem threshold and mass vaccination goals. Today, this idea has inadvertently propelled a misconception that a lower threshold can be achieved through natural infection to safely thwart COVID-19.

Our future with COVID-19 depends on us
On August 14, Tom Britton, a mathematician at Stockholm University in Sweden, and two other scientists released a model in Science that estimates how social activity might influence the herd immunity threshold. They started with the valid assumption that millennials and Gen Z mix more than older people, and so will more readily spread the virus. Britton’s team landed on a herd threshold of 43 percent—much lower than the 60 to 75 percent you get using the classic equation.

“We don't claim that the number from our model applies in reality,” Britton cautions, adding that the model merely shows the degree to which disease-induced immunity can play a role. “We don't want our paper to have the consequence that people feel relaxed and say, Let's skip restrictions and wait for herd immunity.”

Another limitation of heterogeneity modeling, Columbia University’s Shaman says, is that no one really knows how germs spread among people on the street, so it’s difficult to tell what these reduced thresholds mean for real life.

“Heterogeneity is also constantly changing through time because of the measures we put in place. The telecommuting, the closing of schools, the wearing of masks are disrupting all the normal interactions that the virus feeds off,” Shaman says. “That completely changes the landscape.”

Moreover, recent studies of explosive COVID-19 outbreaks in two different regions suggest the classic herd theorem might be valid. In Qatar, the herd immunity threshold appears to have been achieved in about 10 working-class communities.

“So 60 percent of the population of Qatar is migrant workers. Almost all men and South Asian,” says Shaman. “They live in dormitory-style housing. They eat in cafeteria-style settings. They're just about as homogenized, in the sense of their interactions, as you could possibly get.”

In July, researchers began surveying these populations for antibodies, a sign of past infection. They found that 60 to 70 percent of these craft and manual workers—who tend to be young adults—had caught COVID-19 and become immune. Cases in the country have remained low even though officials reopened its borders this summer.

A separate study reported that the Brazilian city of Manaus reached the threshold and dampened its outbreak this summer after coronavirus infected 44 to 66 percent of its population. But a fresh bout of cases raises questions about whether the city truly achieved community protection—or worse, if immunity against the coronavirus wanes.

If the latter, the virus will bounce back even if places reach the herd immunity threshold through natural routes. This vulnerability would be reinforced by children, who are born without immune defenses and thus are susceptible to catching and spreading the disease. Another concern for waning immunity would be frequent reinfections that result in severe symptoms, Shaman says.

“This would suggest we're not going to be done with this any time soon, and that prior exposure doesn't lessen your chance of winding up in the hospital,” he says. Though one severe reinfection has been reported worldwide, there’s no evidence yet this is happening on a broad scale.

If society wants to overcome these bleak possibilities and return to life without social distancing and mask wearing, it needs a vaccine that provides a sufficient amount of what’s known as sterilizing immunity, meaning the drug blocks coronavirus transmission.

Current guidance says vaccine frontrunners can be approved even if they only provide “functional immunity,” which mainly confers protection against the symptoms of the disease.
“I would say the sweet spot is 80 percent,” says CUNY’s Lee, who co-authored a research paper in July about efficacy goals for the COVID-19 vaccine. The bare minimum standard of 50 percent, set by the FDA and WHO, would only protect half the population if everyone is vaccinated. That falls well below the theorem threshold for COVID-19 of 60 to 75 percent. Such a scenario would be akin to the seasonal influenza vaccine, for which transmission efficacy tends to range between 20 to 60 percent. Mass vaccination doesn’t stop the flu, though it does reduce the disease burden on society.

“We have to make it clear to everyone that the first vaccine to reach the market may not achieve those efficacy levels,” Lee says. “It's not that easy to get an efficacy that high for a respiratory virus.”

That’s because current guidance says vaccine frontrunners can be approved even if they only provide “functional immunity,” which mainly confers protection against the symptoms of the disease.

The ongoing COVID-19 vaccine trials are not designed to estimate the impact the vaccine candidates would have on transmission, write the authors of the National Academy of Medicine report, adding that we may not learn this impact until well after an FDA approval. As they explain, the first priority is to stop the most vulnerable people from dying, especially older people with pre-existing conditions and our limited cohort of frontline health-care specialists and first responders.

“So much of the focus has been on the return to normal,” Lee says, “and we can't have that type of expectation.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated to reflect that polio, not the mumps, has an R-naught of seven and herd immunity threshold of 85 percent.

[Jersey mike]

There’s a lot to digest in that article. I did a quick skim and have no feedback right now. I’ll read it with my full attention later.

[..]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8804055/Mayor-Bill-Blasio-locks-nine-NYC-neighborhoods-surging-COVID-infection-rates.html

[Robert]

Why are we so worried about this when we have a 99 percent cure rate? I wish we had that with other illnesses that are much more serious.

Maybe its about time to stop our extreme focus on one illness and start living life. Open things up let people live and continue on the research that may one day make a vaccine.

If the president of the US got it what chance do we have NOT to get it?

He got over it or is getting over it, then why should we be concerned?

He got it was getting sick quickly, got treatment immediately and now is getting over it.

Here is the president being another good role model for us showing us personally how its done. 

[Alien]

Why are we so worried about this when we have a 99 percent cure rate? I wish we had that with other illnesses that are much more serious.

Maybe its about time to stop our extreme focus on one illness and start living life. Open things up let people live and continue on the research that may one day make a vaccine.

If the president of the US got it what chance do we have NOT to get it?

He got over it or is getting over it, then why should we be concerned?

He got it was getting sick quickly, got treatment immediately and now is getting over it.

Here is the president being another good role model for us showing us personally how its done. 

You do understand that the reason the President and multiple other people in his circle have the virus is that they stupidly refused to to take the precautions that we have all been asked to take.

Role model?  Only if you aspire to be a fool.

However, if you feel that you too will have access to cutting edge experimental treatments and a team of the best doctors available, devoted solely to you ensuring that you get the absolute best care available in the world without regard to cost, then go ahead.

[Valkorado]

Why are we so worried about this when we have a 99 percent cure rate? I wish we had that with other illnesses that are much more serious.

Maybe its about time to stop our extreme focus on one illness and start living life. Open things up let people live and continue on the research that may one day make a vaccine.

If the president of the US got it what chance do we have NOT to get it?

He got over it or is getting over it, then why should we be concerned?

He got it was getting sick quickly, got treatment immediately and now is getting over it.

Here is the president being another good role model for us showing us personally how its done.  

Obviously the virus can get to any of us.  It really doesn't care if we acknowledge it.  It doesn't care about our political leanings.  It doesn't know if it's at the Rose Garden, a grocery store, or within a rioting mob - - despite what the media says.  It doesn't give a hoot about the media.  

It does thrive on travelling from host to host, replicatng and mutating.  Most recover at home without incident.  With medical care and hospitalization, many others are "cured" (though many report ongoing debilitating symptoms, and antibodies only remain for a limited time).  Some folks develop complications from the virus and become severely ill - - some of those up and die.

The chances of NOT getting/spreading it are improved if certain mitigations are adhered to.  By now, most know what those recommended mitigations are.  They include social distancing, masking where that is not possible and hand washing.

It ain't rocket science.

[_Sheffjs_]

Why are we so worried about this when we have a 99 percent cure rate? I wish we had that with other illnesses that are much more serious.

Maybe its about time to stop our extreme focus on one illness and start living life. Open things up let people live and continue on the research that may one day make a vaccine.

If the president of the US got it what chance do we have NOT to get it?

He got over it or is getting over it, then why should we be concerned?

He got it was getting sick quickly, got treatment immediately and now is getting over it.

Here is the president being another good role model for us showing us personally how its done. 

You do understand that the reason the President and multiple other people in his circle have the virus is that they stupidly refused to to take the precautions that we have all been asked to take.

Role model?  Only if you aspire to be a fool.

However, if you feel that you too will have access to cutting edge experimental treatments and a team of the best doctors available, devoted solely to you ensuring that you get the absolute best care available in the world without regard to cost, then go ahead.

.   So the vast majority of Swedish are stupid? And the American left usually sing the praises of the cutting edge progressive country.   So our county took the mandatory mask rule out.  Are the leaders of our county stupid?   A fool.....   Covid is legit, but to me so is hell and many do not live in fear of it.   

[The emperor has no clothes]

I live in fear of Hell. You don't ? 

[..]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54413563

Paris to shut bars and raise alert to maximum

[Alien]

Why are we so worried about this when we have a 99 percent cure rate? I wish we had that with other illnesses that are much more serious.

Maybe its about time to stop our extreme focus on one illness and start living life. Open things up let people live and continue on the research that may one day make a vaccine.

If the president of the US got it what chance do we have NOT to get it?

He got over it or is getting over it, then why should we be concerned?

He got it was getting sick quickly, got treatment immediately and now is getting over it.

Here is the president being another good role model for us showing us personally how its done. 

You do understand that the reason the President and multiple other people in his circle have the virus is that they stupidly refused to to take the precautions that we have all been asked to take.

Role model?  Only if you aspire to be a fool.

However, if you feel that you too will have access to cutting edge experimental treatments and a team of the best doctors available, devoted solely to you ensuring that you get the absolute best care available in the world without regard to cost, then go ahead.

.   So the vast majority of Swedish are stupid? And the American left usually sing the praises of the cutting edge progressive country.   So our county took the mandatory mask rule out.  Are the leaders of our county stupid?   A fool.....   Covid is legit, but to me so is hell and many do not live in fear of it.   

I'm a Jew.  We don't believe in Hell, so I don't fear that which I don't believe exists.

[DirtyDan]

.....

Beginning to suspect that I’m part jewish myself

Dan

[..]

N.Y. Governor shuts schools in 9 districts starting tomorrw.

[Jersey mike]

Why are we so worried about this when we have a 99 percent cure rate? I wish we had that with other illnesses that are much more serious.

Maybe its about time to stop our extreme focus on one illness and start living life. Open things up let people live and continue on the research that may one day make a vaccine.

If the president of the US got it what chance do we have NOT to get it?

He got over it or is getting over it, then why should we be concerned?

He got it was getting sick quickly, got treatment immediately and now is getting over it.

Here is the president being another good role model for us showing us personally how its done. 

You do understand that the reason the President and multiple other people in his circle have the virus is that they stupidly refused to to take the precautions that we have all been asked to take.

Role model?  Only if you aspire to be a fool.

However, if you feel that you too will have access to cutting edge experimental treatments and a team of the best doctors available, devoted solely to you ensuring that you get the absolute best care available in the world without regard to cost, then go ahead.

.   So the vast majority of Swedish are stupid? And the American left usually sing the praises of the cutting edge progressive country.   So our county took the mandatory mask rule out.  Are the leaders of our county stupid?   A fool.....   Covid is legit, but to me so is hell and many do not live in fear of it.   

Here we go again with the mask issue.

Paris, France, middle of August mandated masks, yet their number have continued to climb stuff is being shut down.

It’s an easy search to see for yourself. Sorry for not posting links but the info is out there.

[Alien]

Whatever.  The number of COVID cases from the maskless Trump administration is climbing daily and still you can't see.  I'm done trying to show you what you refuse to see.  Go ahead and embrace stupidity, see if I care.

[Willow]

Whatever.  The number of COVID cases from the maskless Trump administration is climbing daily and still you can't see.  I'm done trying to show you what you refuse to see.  Go ahead and embrace stupidity, see if I care.

It appears stupidity has already been embraced.  We're likely accepting that there's no showing you what you refuse to see.    

[carolinarider09]

And just when you thought it was getting better, Dr. Fauci says we must support and envigorate the WHO, among other things like environmental changes, fewer animal farms.   

Of course it comes from the "Natural News" which is listed as an unreliable source but I did verify one quote from National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases scientific senior adviser David Morens in referenced document "CELL" about Living in greater harmony with nature.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867420310126




In a recent article for a prominent medical journal, Fauci wrote that combating COVID-19 requires “rebuilding the infrastructures of human existence,” which means, apparently, giving more U.S. tax dollars to an organization that lied to us.

“Living in greater harmony with nature will require changes in human behavior as well as other radical changes that may take decades to achieve: rebuilding the infrastructures of human existence, from cities to homes to workplaces, to water and sewer systems, to recreational and gatherings venues,” Fauci — along with National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases scientific senior adviser David Morens — wrote in the Sept. 3 issue of Cell.

“In such a transformation we will need to prioritize changes in those human behaviors that constitute risks for the emergence of infectious diseases,” Fauci and Morens noted further.

“Chief among them are reducing crowding at home, work, and in public places as well as minimizing environmental perturbations such as deforestation, intense urbanization, and intensive animal farming,” they said. “Equally important are ending global poverty, improving sanitation and hygiene, and reducing unsafe exposure to animals, so that humans and potential human pathogens have limited opportunities for contact.”

Now for the ‘good’ part: They both noted that “global biosafety cooperation” ought to be improved “by strengthening the United Nations and its agencies, particularly the World Health Organization” (among other measures).

https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-10-05-fauci-wants-to-expand-empower-corrupt-who.html

[_Sheffjs_]

Whatever.  The number of COVID cases from the maskless Trump administration is climbing daily and still you can't see.  I'm done trying to show you what you refuse to see.  Go ahead and embrace stupidity, see if I care.

. See that works both ways we try to get you to see what we see. And when you present you are portraying yourself as the all knowing. The word of the almighty Alien when he speaks it is the only truth and nothing else is excepted. Yes I do focus on your approach. I mentioned I felt that Covid is real, maybe it will find me, maybe I do well maybe I don’t. I am careful I am mindful I simply do not see that the mask is needed like Sweden.  

[Robert]

"He's Back" - Trump's Doctors Confirm He Will Return To White House Monday 

Thank you God for healing.

Wow so he's back in the saddle on Monday, well it seems we have another statistic, another cure.

CDC cure rate 99 percent so whats all the fuss about?

So no lockdown, no mask. flack from the left and we have a president down one week and others I know down 1 day and there is still hysterics.

I wonder who has the lack of intelligence when it seems not as bad as it was predicted.

I wonder who listens to the hysterical media? Any guesses anyone?

I  wonder who is going to foot the bill for the economy having a difficult time? Who is still pushing the sky is falling with a 99 percent cure rate.

                                         MASK OR NO Mask:

                          The numbers go up of those getting it,

                       just as the numbers go up of those cured.

                            Who wants to live life in a bubble?

CDC Re-Releases Guidance Claiming COVID-19 'Airborne' Transmission Is Possible, But Less Common   ???

Available data indicate that it is much more common for the virus that causes COVID-19 to spread through close contact with a person who has COVID-19 than through airborne transmission.

[DirtyDan]

Whatever.  The number of COVID cases from the maskless Trump administration is climbing daily and still you can't see.  I'm done trying to show you what you refuse to see.  Go ahead and embrace stupidity, see if I care.

Pm sent

......stupidity........

Dan

[Jersey mike]

Sorry had to copy/paste text from National Geographic so there will be, some gobbledygook.  Charts and graphs didn't copy, of course.  Otherwise verbatim.


The history of herd immunity can explain why we need an effective vaccine to beat COVID-19. Above: Edward Jenner (1749-1823) performs his first vaccination against smallpox on James Phipps, a boy of eight, May 14, 1796, oil on canvas.
PAINTING BY ERNES BOARD, DEA PICTURE LIBRARY, GETTY IMAGES
SCIENCECORONAVIRUS COVERAGE

A 'herd mentality' can’t stop the COVID-19 pandemic. Neither can a weak vaccine.
Debates over herd immunity and natural infection arise with every outbreak. Effective vaccination always wins.

10 MINUTE READ
BY NSIKAN AKPAN
PUBLISHED OCTOBER 2, 2020

EARLY DISEASE FIGHTERS, such as Edward Jenner, Louis Pasteur, and William Farr, suspected if enough people were vaccinated, it could eradicate a disease. At the dawn of the 20th century, veterinarians more interested in livestock than people seized on the idea and coined the term “herd immunity.” By the 1920s, clever studies with hundreds of thousands of mice vaulted the idea into the mainstream, stirring optimism that making a fraction of a population immune could forestall a devastating outbreak.

But even the trailblazers researching herd immunity were mystified by how to deploy it in practice. This conundrum has featured in battles against many modern plagues—such as smallpox, polio, and measles. And now it is part of the debate as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to flourish around much of the world.

Some prominent leaders wonder if herd immunity created as people are naturally infected with SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus would be enough to restore society to working order. For evidence, they point to hard-hit epicenters such as New York City, where approximately 20 percent of the residents have been infected and the caseload has been low and steady for months. This sustained recovery must be due to herd protection, they argue.

But based on simple math, past experiences with outbreaks, and emerging evidence from the ongoing pandemic, this claim is a fantasy.

“If we had reached sufficient herd immunity in New York, you would expect incidents to continue going down, not to be holding steady,” says Virginia Pitzer, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health who specializes in the mathematical modeling of how diseases spread.

A vaccine with 50-percent efficacy could spare hundreds of thousands from hospitalizations, chronic health issues, and death—but it couldn’t hit the herd immunity threshold on its own even if everyone took it. The safest bet is a vaccine above 75 percent efficacy.

If 50% 75% 100% of the population receives a vaccine, here's how many susceptible people, infections, survivors, and deaths could exist  100 days later.
No vaccine

93.4% of population has been infected

A vaccine 50% effective

Less than 1% has been infected

A vaccine 80% effective

Less than 1% has been infected

NOTE: Each SEIR scenario includes 1,000 dots. Each dot equals 1,000 people. The model assumes an infection-fatality ratio of 0.75% and a basic reproduction number of 3.0. It also assumes that immunity develops after infection, so does not allow for reinfection, and that a vaccine is the sole intervention among the masses.

SOURCE: PHICOR

The reality is that most of the world—including 90 percent of the United States—remains susceptible to infection by the coronavirus virus, despite the global toll so far. Banking on natural infection to control the outbreak would lead to months, if not years, of a dismaying cycle in which cases subside and then surge. Even if such community-mediated protection were established, it would be constantly eroded by the birth of children and the real possibility that immunity in those previously infected would wane.

Only two infectious diseases have ever been eradicated: the human scourge of smallpox and the cattle-borne germ rinderpest. All other known afflictions—including such Old World pestilences as rabies, leprosy, and bubonic plague—have either been managed through human intervention or remain uncontrolled.

“It's very unlikely that we're going to see elimination of COVID-19 altogether from the population simply through the buildup of natural immunity,” says Pitzer. But if we add a highly effective vaccine on top of that, Pitzer says, “then it is theoretically possible that we could eliminate the virus” or at least control it.

A 237-page report from the National Academy of Medicine, published October 2, lays out how to distribute such a vaccine in an equitable manner—while also showing how hard this process will be. A crucial step will be communicating how good the vaccine needs to be to stop transmission. While major health agencies, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the World Health Organization, say a COVID-19 vaccine should be at least 50-percent effective to be approved, this benchmark would actually be too low to establish protective herd immunity.

“It doesn't mean that a vaccine that's below this certain threshold will not be useful,” says Bruce Y. Lee, professor and executive director of Public Health Computational and Operations Research (PHICOR) at the City University of New York School of Public Health. “But if you want to be in a situation where you don't have to do social distancing and these other things anymore, then the vaccine really needs to be over 80 percent efficacy.”

What we mean when we talk about herd immunity

Herd immunity’s prominence in fighting epidemics can trace its origins to the 1920s and the University of Manchester in England. Inside a lab there, about 15,000 mice per year scurried through what looked like moon bases in miniature. Intricate residential pods—each about a foot wide—were connected by cylindrical tunnels, allowing the rodents to move freely around the Lilliputian cities.

But occasionally, the mouse cities would experience epidemics—ones started intentionally by the project’s leaders, William Whiteman Carlton Topley and Graham Selby Wilson. Members of one city would be exposed to lethal bacteria, while those in a separate city would receive doses of a vaccine along with the dangerous germ. The duo’s findings—published in 1923—demonstrated that immunity in a portion of a population could slow an outbreak and protect otherwise susceptible individuals.

“They called it experimental epidemiology,” says Paul Fine, a professor of communicable disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, who has written extensively about the origins of herd immunity. Topley and Wilson—along with some help from their contemporaries—helped popularize the idea, particularly through a textbook that’s still used by students to this day.

Yet when most people discuss herd immunity today, they’re really talking about what’s known as the “herd threshold theorem.” It’s what scientists are referencing when they say 75 percent of the population needs to be immune against COVID-19 to stop disease transmission, and it’s surprisingly simple to calculate.

Say a germ lands in foreign world, where an entire population is susceptible. And say it becomes clear that one infected person will transmit it to four others on average—a value known as the germ’s basic reproduction number, represented by an R with a subscript zero and thus called R-naught. To flatten the outbreak’s growth, you want a situation where the afflicted can infect just one person out of four.

“Well, that would be a circumstance where three out of the four were immune. He sneezed in four faces, but three of those individuals were immune,” Fine says. Three out of four is three-quarters, meaning a 75-percent threshold is needed to reach herd immunity.

Different viruses have their own reproduction numbers, so each has its own herd immunity threshold. Try the math again for measles, where one case can infect 18 susceptible people, and you get 94 percent. Polio has an R-naught of seven, so its threshold is 85 percent. These percentages serve as the targets for mass vaccination. Achieve them, and enough people in your community will be protected so that an outsider carrying the germ won’t be able to trigger a sustained outbreak.

While the underpinnings for the threshold theorem arose in the early 20th century, British epidemiologist George Macdonald was the first to incorporate the reproduction number, while studying malaria in Africa in the 1950s. It would be on this continent that a blind spot caused by strictly adhering to the concept would soon be discovered.

Why mass vaccination alone couldn’t beat smallpox
As a 16-year-old volunteer firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service, William Foege learned a key principle that would ultimately save millions of people from the scourge of smallpox: “Separate the fuel from the flames, and the fire stops,” Foege writes in his memoir House on Fire.

This mantra stuck with Foege after he joined the agency now known as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1962, and he was eventually stationed in Nigeria as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer.

Three years earlier, the United Nations, World Health Assembly, and the WHO had launched a global eradication campaign against smallpox. The mass vaccination program quickly squelched the disease in Europe and North America, but nearly a decade later, the disease remained endemic in much of Africa, Asia, and South America, with tens of thousands of cases still reported each year. The virus kept finding hideouts—both in rural areas and high-density cities where it could fester—and ultimately threaten disease-free areas given that the vaccine’s immunity only lasted five years.

The tide turned on December 4, 1966, when a missionary in the southeastern Nigerian region of Ogoja radioed Foege to warn of a new possible outbreak. Trekking 90 miles by motorbike, Foege and his smallpox unit confirmed four cases in one village—but immediately faced a dilemma. Standard protocol called for vaccinating everyone in all the villages within a certain radius, but the team didn’t have enough doses. They would need to improvise.

“If we were smallpox viruses bent on immortality, what would we do to extend our family tree?” Foege writes. “The answer of course was to find the nearest susceptible person in which to continue reproduction.”

They opted to track down and vaccinate the individuals most likely to come in contact with the known cases. Dubbed “ring vaccination” or “surveillance-containment,” this strategy helped clear the final strongholds of smallpox over the next eight years.

The philosophy of science is to break down
the walls of ignorance.

The philosophy behind medicine is to use that truth for every individual patient.

The philosophy behind public health is to use that truth for everyone.
WILLIAM FOEGE, FORMER CDC DIRECTOR AND DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR EMERITUS, EMORY UNIVERSITY

Ok so this was an interesting article.

What I take away is that yes C-19 is a tough virus.

Some Younger people will feel invulnerable and rightfully so.

Getting a vaccine to each person (In the USA is one thing and each person in The World is something completely different)  will be a somewhat challenging but will eventually get done. That’s the way the ball bounces.

Frontline, essential, service personnel and other workers will get their first.

This wasn’t a doom and gloom scenario just that’s it’s going to be tough nobody has said it would be easy.

[Jersey mike]

"He's Back" - Trump's Doctors Confirm He Will Return To White House Monday 

Thank you God for healing.

Wow so he's back in the saddle on Monday, well it seems we have another statistic, another cure.

CDC cure rate 99 percent so whats all the fuss about?

So no lockdown, no mask. flack from the left and we have a president down one week and others I know down 1 day and there is still hysterics.

I wonder who has the lack of intelligence when it seems not as bad as it was predicted.

I wonder who listens to the hysterical media? Any guesses anyone?

I  wonder who is going to foot the bill for the economy having a difficult time? Who is still pushing the sky is falling with a 99 percent cure rate.

                                         MASK OR NO Mask:

                          The numbers go up of those getting it,

                       just as the numbers go up of those cured.

                            Who wants to live life in a bubble?

CDC Re-Releases Guidance Claiming COVID-19 'Airborne' Transmission Is Possible, But Less Common   ???

Available data indicate that it is much more common for the virus that causes COVID-19 to spread through close contact with a person who has COVID-19 than through airborne transmission.

The man is an old school workhorse. What don’t kill ya will only make ya stronger. Sniffles? go to work. Feeling “blue”? shut up and go to work. He’s of “THAT” generation. I know so many of that generation that just didn’t stop working when not feeling well and know *some* like that now. Die hard workers.

[Jersey mike]

On France:

France Covid-19: Paris compulsory face-mask rule comes into force

Published28 August

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53934952

Look at the daily numbers SINCE mandatory masks was initiated in August.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/

[Valkorado]

Get COVID, feel 20 years younger!     (steroids)

Glad he's back!

[Valkorado]

CDC Acknowledges Coronavirus Can Spread Via Airborne Transmission

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/10/05/920446534/cdc-acknowledges-coronavirus-can-spread-via-airborne-transmission

https://www.foxnews.com/health/cdc-coronavirus-guidance-airborne-transmission

https://news.yahoo.com/cdc-admits-covid-19-spread-211400081.html

[Willow]

...
Wow so he's back in the saddle on Monday, well it seems we have another statistic, another cure.
...

He's still on the job and back at the Whitehouse but let's not jump too quickly.  The President is being treated and responding well but is not yet "cured".

[scooperhsd]

I would agree with Willow's summation of the President's condition. He may have a 2nd stage where he has to go back to the hospital (God willing - not).

[f6john]

I live in fear of Hell. You don't ? 

Interesting revelation. You don’t have to be. Heaven and Hell is a choice we all make. There is even a guidebook to help you along the way. If you believe there is a hell to fear, you are half way there because heaven is just as real. This is a public service announcement from a sinner covered by Gods grace and intercession on my behalf by Jesus Christ.

[Jersey mike]

I live in fear of Hell. You don't ? 

Interesting revelation. You don’t have to be. Heaven and Hell is a choice we all make. There is even a guidebook to help you along the way. If you believe there is a hell to fear, you are half way there because heaven is just as real. This is a public service announcement from a sinner covered by Gods grace and intercession on my behalf by Jesus Christ.

I love in fear of the Bermuda Triangle, super volcanos, killer asteroids, vampires...I hate vampires, stop and go traffic...my nemesis, cage drivers not paying attention for bikers and liberal left wing socialism.

[The emperor has no clothes]

I live in fear of Hell. You don't ? 

Interesting revelation. You don’t have to be. Heaven and Hell is a choice we all make. There is even a guidebook to help you along the way. If you believe there is a hell to fear, you are half way there because heaven is just as real. This is a public service announcement from a sinner covered by Gods grace and intercession on my behalf by Jesus Christ.

Maybe your religion is different. In mine we choose our actions, God judges our actions.

But thanks for your advice. 

[Valkorado]

Ok so this was an interesting article.

What I take away is that yes C-19 is a tough virus.

Some Younger people will feel invulnerable and rightfully so.

Getting a vaccine to each person (In the USA is one thing and each person in The World is something completely different)  will be a somewhat challenging but will eventually get done. That’s the way the ball bounces.

Frontline, essential, service personnel and other workers will get their first.

This wasn’t a doom and gloom scenario just that’s it’s going to be tough nobody has said it would be easy.

What I take away from the article is exactly what the title states:

A 'herd mentality' can’t stop the COVID-19 pandemic. Neither can a weak vaccine.

Like you say, it's not a doom and gloom article.  It's science.

[Jersey mike]

Ok so this was an interesting article.

What I take away is that yes C-19 is a tough virus.

Some Younger people will feel invulnerable and rightfully so.

Getting a vaccine to each person (In the USA is one thing and each person in The World is something completely different)  will be a somewhat challenging but will eventually get done. That’s the way the ball bounces.

Frontline, essential, service personnel and other workers will get their first.

This wasn’t a doom and gloom scenario just that’s it’s going to be tough nobody has said it would be easy.

What I take away from the article is exactly what the title states:

A 'herd mentality' can’t stop the COVID-19 pandemic. Neither can a weak vaccine.

Like you say, it's not a doom and gloom article.  It's science.

They never really quantify that statement IMO.

I take away herd immunity is possible but there will be continued flair ups or hot and cold spots. A good vaccine is important and together herd immunity and a vaccinated society will be a good thing and keep people out of the hospital.

There isn’t much more that can be done, it’s a virus. Some people catch it and are fine, some feel sick, some are hospitalized, a slight number die. That’s life. That how viruses work.

It proven that there is over a 99% chance of living if a person get this up to the age of 65 and over a 95% chance of living over that age of 65.

I’ve never heard people complain so much about such great odds.


Geez, I hope nobody tells me I have a 95% chance of winning the lottery today I’m not sure those odds are in my favor.

Schools should be wide open.

Sporting venues should be filled to capacity.

Hotels, bars and restaurants should be fully functional.

Places of worship should be filled with parishioners.

Airlines should be flying people around  the world again.

Cruise ships should be filled and out to sea.

[Jersey mike]

If there’s any truth or if anyone still believes in The WHO

Yesterday’s comments;

https://www.theblaze.com/news/who-10-percent-infected-coronavirus


“ The World Health Organization's head of emergencies said Monday the agency's "best estimates" indicate that about 10% of the world's population has been infected by the coronavirus — a figure over 20 times higher than the number of current confirmed cases.”

“Why does it matter?“

“The estimate, if correct, would amount to more than 760 million people based on the current global population of 7.6 billion. That figure greatly exceeds the current number of confirmed cases worldwide — which is projected by the WHO and Johns Hopkins University to be approximately 35.3 million.”

“The number of global deaths is estimated to be just over 1 million.“

“The AP reported that Ryan did not elaborate on the estimate, but that a spokesperson for the agency, Dr. Margaret Harris, noted the estimate was based on an average of antibody studies conducted around the world.“

“On one hand, the estimate paints a dark picture of a much more infectious disease and the possibility that there are a great multitude of asymptomatic carriers. But on the other hand, if the figure is accurate, then perhaps the virus is far less deadly than is presently believed.“

[Valkorado]

They never really quantify that statement IMO.

IMO, YO is wrong.  They went into detail on both herd immunity and weak vaccines.  Back to the herd immunity pipe dream.

10% Of Global Population May Have Contracted The Coronavirus, WHO Says

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/10/05/920453483/10-of-global-population-may-have-contracted-the-coronavirus-who-says

It's an estimate that's far higher than the total of global confirmed cases reported by governments. At the same time, it would mean that most of the world's population is still vulnerable to getting infected and this pandemic is far from over, the WHO's head of emergencies Dr. Michael Ryan said Monday.

"This varies by country, it varies urban to rural, it varies by different groups," Ryan said. "But what it does mean is that the vast majority of the world remains at risk."