I am dumber for having read those two comments, thanks. 😳 I'll reply to you later tonight when I have time for a rant since several people upvoted you.
rant: We'll start with some comments and move on to the education part in the second half. There are a few things going on here. You and several other people are seeing trigger words and getting triggered. You're imagining I'm saying things I'm not and arguing against things I never even touched. I don't blame you for ending up like this because there are a lot of people full of shit trying to make policy decisions about your lives and rights, you're being propagandized and lied to, and it's hard being you when you don't have a basic grasp of biology. You're reacting to my words as if one of those people is saying it to you. You're projecting. Let me tell you a little bit about me. I'm a bio nerd and I completely oppose forced vaccinations or anything like that. I have a pretty solid grasp of the arguments for and against vaccinations and I honestly don't care if you (or anyone else) take advantage of vaccinations or any kind of medical procedures or ... don't. I feel strongly about people who choose to be ignorant and make medical decisions, especially for their children, but ... I care about consent even more than that; I would oppose any legislation that takes that consent from anyone. For a reason why consent matters, you don' thave to look further than Jenner's original experiment with cowpox.
Okay, let's get to the education part. Vaccines are called that because of the word vaca. It's latin for cow. For specifics about the kinds of vaccines and methods, look at the pamphlet I linked. It's a pretty old technique. The science has been adequately understood for about a century. You take a virus, you innoculate (or inject) the patient with a virus, and you get an immune response. You might use a different strain of the virus, a similar virus, or parts of a virus to get that response. You already know that not everyone can get a virus. Some people are immune to it because they've had it, they've had something similar and their immune system protects them, or ... their body just can't be infected for whatever reason (we don't always know why). I colloquially use the term immune to encompass everyone here but I do understand that's not technically correct since it's not always an immune reaction that protects people. We can nitpick about this but I'd rather not. Anyway, we know viruses are usually not 100% effective, as in, they don't infect everyone they bump into. In that same way, vaccines are usually not 100% effective. We can go deeper into why but it's not really relevant. When I use the word efficacy, this is the technical phenomenon I'm referring to. I was pretty precise in my word choice because I meant something specific to be understood by the reader. Why didn't I use effectiveness? Because the two words don't mean the same thing. Efficacy is a clinical result. You inject x many subjects with the vaccine, you get y many immune responses. If you study it further, maybe you can even get z many subjects who don't get the virus you're vaccinating for. Sometimes people use efficacy interchangeably between the two but within a clinical context, you usually know what's up. Effectiveness is a bit more wishy-washy, nebulous, term. It means how effective a vaccine is for a virus within a general population. It's kind of hard to study and talk about. Herd immunity (your trigger word), is kind of like that. It's a bit nebulous. Yes, it does come from the concept of the cow. It basically means the threshold or number of animals in the herd that a virus doesn't work on for only the infected animals to suffer. Basically, it's the number of animals you can have immune (colloquially, for whatever reason) that you can put a bunch of infected cows from another herd with them and not have new cases (or very few). If we want to discuss specifics, that's where things kind of fall apart. That's because it's different for every virus, you're never going to get 0 new infections on transplant of the infected from another herd, and what does it really matter anyway. The consequences are one thing for the flu and another for the pox or ebola. We do know there is such a thing as herd immunity because we've stamped out certain diseases in certain areas with vaccines. Then, when the number of immune people fell, contagious transplants were able to create outbreaks in those areas. So we're not arguing about that. What's the number is a good question to ask. It's one thing for the flu and possibly another for the pox. We got rid of the pox, we have NEVER been able to get rid of "the flu". There are reasons we can get into but we've had herd immunity for the pox (resistance above 93%) but never had it for the flu (resistance somewhere around 40-60% if I had to pull a number out of my ass). The article you cited is interesting. I think it brings up a good point. There are two things we discuss in the context of effectiveness and herd immunity: models and actual data. They're both science but I think you'll agree actual data is stronger than the models. Some people will try to trick you there but I won't because it really does matter that people understand the difference. I want you to decide for or against something both on your feelings about it and a basic understanding of what you're being told. We have data for the pox, we have some data for covid, we have some data for flu, and we have models for all of those. It's not worth talking about the models for pox because the data there weeds out wrong models. The models for covid have also been spectacularly wrong, and when updated with the real data, pretty accurate. I'm not going to discuss the bullshit because that's a whole other rant by itself. The point is we know we can get herd immunity at 90+%. We know we can't get it at 40-60%. But what about 10%? First of all, the percentage of people who can get covid is about 30%. That's pretty solid data at this point. If you innoculate/vaccinate/protect/whatever 10% of the population, you now have 80% of people who maybe won't get it but simple math tells us that leaves 20% of the population vulnerable. Is that 80% number enough to grant them herd immunity as the models in your article indicate? That's a great question. I think there's value in that line of thinking. But ... the answer is no. That's outrageous! How can we know that? Well, because of the data on homeless people. 30% could get it, and 30% got it. They were mostly asymptomatic which is another interesting quirk but the answer is NO, 80% is not enough to confer herd immunity. Which is fine because that article was also based on models, just like the original (wrong) models on covid. Now... I hear you, I understand your point: well, what does it matter if 30% of bums got covid if they never exhibited symptoms? That's a great point! I respect your line of thinking, but it doesn't invalidate the VERY basic concept of vaccines, innoculation, efficacy, effectiveness, herd immunity, etc; you know, the science. I know, your ears are burning hearing that word but consider this. The "science" has been pretty settled for about a century. This is why ever since the spanish flu, the US Government's position has been that there's really nothing to be done about airborne respiratory pathogens except develop herd immunity and develop vaccines to reduce suffering. Basically, these diseases are going to run through the population and do their thing one way or another. You can let the virus do its thing and hurt people or help it along doing its thing with another version that does less damage. Until Covid, this was pretty much how things were done. People pulled some bullshit on you and now you're throwing away the baby with the bathwater. I'm not going to address some of your specific claims about what I said because they're bizzare but I hope at least now you understand the basic biology better. I don't personally need anyone to be immune or vaccinated or wear a mask or whatever. I hope you consider that when you process this information instead of rejecting it.
I specifically picked a 2018 resource so you'd understand you're not being bamboozled and I'm not throwing bullshit at you because it was done before anyone had to worry about changing the "science" to fit their political narrative. Yeah, you'll see some vaccine encouragement but there's nothing I can do about that, there's only so much spin I can pull out for you.
PM me if you have any questions in this area. I appreciate that you're trying to make people think better, I really do, but you have to be careful with that when it's not an area you know a lot about.
I am dumber for having read those two comments, thanks. 😳 I'll reply to you later tonight when I have time for a rant since several people upvoted you.
save your self some time and save it for somebody who cares
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/herd-immunity-may-only-need-a-10-per-cent-infection-rate
What trade do you practice for a living, if you don't mind me asking? You manage to top each one of your comments; it's amazing.
part time coal mine foreman, part time gunslinger.
on weekends and holidays (today being one), i take time off to sculpt statues and educate people on how to think clearly.
I can respect that. Let's get this rant done.
rant: We'll start with some comments and move on to the education part in the second half. There are a few things going on here. You and several other people are seeing trigger words and getting triggered. You're imagining I'm saying things I'm not and arguing against things I never even touched. I don't blame you for ending up like this because there are a lot of people full of shit trying to make policy decisions about your lives and rights, you're being propagandized and lied to, and it's hard being you when you don't have a basic grasp of biology. You're reacting to my words as if one of those people is saying it to you. You're projecting. Let me tell you a little bit about me. I'm a bio nerd and I completely oppose forced vaccinations or anything like that. I have a pretty solid grasp of the arguments for and against vaccinations and I honestly don't care if you (or anyone else) take advantage of vaccinations or any kind of medical procedures or ... don't. I feel strongly about people who choose to be ignorant and make medical decisions, especially for their children, but ... I care about consent even more than that; I would oppose any legislation that takes that consent from anyone. For a reason why consent matters, you don' thave to look further than Jenner's original experiment with cowpox.
Okay, let's get to the education part. Vaccines are called that because of the word vaca. It's latin for cow. For specifics about the kinds of vaccines and methods, look at the pamphlet I linked. It's a pretty old technique. The science has been adequately understood for about a century. You take a virus, you innoculate (or inject) the patient with a virus, and you get an immune response. You might use a different strain of the virus, a similar virus, or parts of a virus to get that response. You already know that not everyone can get a virus. Some people are immune to it because they've had it, they've had something similar and their immune system protects them, or ... their body just can't be infected for whatever reason (we don't always know why). I colloquially use the term immune to encompass everyone here but I do understand that's not technically correct since it's not always an immune reaction that protects people. We can nitpick about this but I'd rather not. Anyway, we know viruses are usually not 100% effective, as in, they don't infect everyone they bump into. In that same way, vaccines are usually not 100% effective. We can go deeper into why but it's not really relevant. When I use the word efficacy, this is the technical phenomenon I'm referring to. I was pretty precise in my word choice because I meant something specific to be understood by the reader. Why didn't I use effectiveness? Because the two words don't mean the same thing. Efficacy is a clinical result. You inject x many subjects with the vaccine, you get y many immune responses. If you study it further, maybe you can even get z many subjects who don't get the virus you're vaccinating for. Sometimes people use efficacy interchangeably between the two but within a clinical context, you usually know what's up. Effectiveness is a bit more wishy-washy, nebulous, term. It means how effective a vaccine is for a virus within a general population. It's kind of hard to study and talk about. Herd immunity (your trigger word), is kind of like that. It's a bit nebulous. Yes, it does come from the concept of the cow. It basically means the threshold or number of animals in the herd that a virus doesn't work on for only the infected animals to suffer. Basically, it's the number of animals you can have immune (colloquially, for whatever reason) that you can put a bunch of infected cows from another herd with them and not have new cases (or very few). If we want to discuss specifics, that's where things kind of fall apart. That's because it's different for every virus, you're never going to get 0 new infections on transplant of the infected from another herd, and what does it really matter anyway. The consequences are one thing for the flu and another for the pox or ebola. We do know there is such a thing as herd immunity because we've stamped out certain diseases in certain areas with vaccines. Then, when the number of immune people fell, contagious transplants were able to create outbreaks in those areas. So we're not arguing about that. What's the number is a good question to ask. It's one thing for the flu and possibly another for the pox. We got rid of the pox, we have NEVER been able to get rid of "the flu". There are reasons we can get into but we've had herd immunity for the pox (resistance above 93%) but never had it for the flu (resistance somewhere around 40-60% if I had to pull a number out of my ass). The article you cited is interesting. I think it brings up a good point. There are two things we discuss in the context of effectiveness and herd immunity: models and actual data. They're both science but I think you'll agree actual data is stronger than the models. Some people will try to trick you there but I won't because it really does matter that people understand the difference. I want you to decide for or against something both on your feelings about it and a basic understanding of what you're being told. We have data for the pox, we have some data for covid, we have some data for flu, and we have models for all of those. It's not worth talking about the models for pox because the data there weeds out wrong models. The models for covid have also been spectacularly wrong, and when updated with the real data, pretty accurate. I'm not going to discuss the bullshit because that's a whole other rant by itself. The point is we know we can get herd immunity at 90+%. We know we can't get it at 40-60%. But what about 10%? First of all, the percentage of people who can get covid is about 30%. That's pretty solid data at this point. If you innoculate/vaccinate/protect/whatever 10% of the population, you now have 80% of people who maybe won't get it but simple math tells us that leaves 20% of the population vulnerable. Is that 80% number enough to grant them herd immunity as the models in your article indicate? That's a great question. I think there's value in that line of thinking. But ... the answer is no. That's outrageous! How can we know that? Well, because of the data on homeless people. 30% could get it, and 30% got it. They were mostly asymptomatic which is another interesting quirk but the answer is NO, 80% is not enough to confer herd immunity. Which is fine because that article was also based on models, just like the original (wrong) models on covid. Now... I hear you, I understand your point: well, what does it matter if 30% of bums got covid if they never exhibited symptoms? That's a great point! I respect your line of thinking, but it doesn't invalidate the VERY basic concept of vaccines, innoculation, efficacy, effectiveness, herd immunity, etc; you know, the science. I know, your ears are burning hearing that word but consider this. The "science" has been pretty settled for about a century. This is why ever since the spanish flu, the US Government's position has been that there's really nothing to be done about airborne respiratory pathogens except develop herd immunity and develop vaccines to reduce suffering. Basically, these diseases are going to run through the population and do their thing one way or another. You can let the virus do its thing and hurt people or help it along doing its thing with another version that does less damage. Until Covid, this was pretty much how things were done. People pulled some bullshit on you and now you're throwing away the baby with the bathwater. I'm not going to address some of your specific claims about what I said because they're bizzare but I hope at least now you understand the basic biology better. I don't personally need anyone to be immune or vaccinated or wear a mask or whatever. I hope you consider that when you process this information instead of rejecting it.
I'd appreciate it if you took another 15 min of your time and: watched this video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=105ebQ8VSsE&t=3s ) then read this 2018 (pre-covid) presentation ( https://www.nursing.pitt.edu/sites/default/files/Roberts_Herd_Immunity.pdf )
I specifically picked a 2018 resource so you'd understand you're not being bamboozled and I'm not throwing bullshit at you because it was done before anyone had to worry about changing the "science" to fit their political narrative. Yeah, you'll see some vaccine encouragement but there's nothing I can do about that, there's only so much spin I can pull out for you.
and finally, if you have some time, just quickly skim this ( https://www.kimt.com/content/news/Mayo-Clinic-explains-vaccine-efficacy-versus-vaccine-effectiveness-573896051.html )
PM me if you have any questions in this area. I appreciate that you're trying to make people think better, I really do, but you have to be careful with that when it's not an area you know a lot about.
You can't read. Imagine, if you will, a world where I never said that.