Herd immunity has become mythical?

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Reuben
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Joined: Sat Oct 28, 2017 3:01 pm

Herd immunity has become mythical?

Post by Reuben » Tue Aug 17, 2021 9:13 pm

According to the director of the Oxford Vaccine Group (the people behind AstraZeneca), the Delta variant makes herd immunity against the virus "mythical."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... d-mythical
Reaching herd immunity is “not a possibility” with the current Delta variant, the head of the Oxford Vaccine Group has said.

Giving evidence to MPs on Tuesday, Prof Sir Andrew Pollard said the fact that vaccines did not stop the spread of Covid meant reaching the threshold for overall immunity in the population was “mythical”.

“The problem with this virus is [it is] not measles. If 95% of people were vaccinated against measles, the virus cannot transmit in the population,” he told the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on coronavirus.

“The Delta variant will still infect people who have been vaccinated. And that does mean that anyone who’s still unvaccinated at some point will meet the virus … and we don’t have anything that will [completely] stop that transmission.”

Although the existing vaccines are very effective at preventing serious Covid illness and death, they do not stop a fully vaccinated person from being infected by the virus that causes Covid-19.
So with the Delta variant, which is quickly overtaking the original, getting the vaccine is about your health and your contribution to the health care system load, not about protecting other people from Covid.

It's still possible - though harder now that a large percentage of the population is vaccinated - to overwhelm the health care system, so IMO it's not a great idea to fully go back to business as usual yet.

But it's time to accept that most of us will get it. Half of the vaccinated will be asymptomatic, which is nice. The other half will mostly be protected from the worst of it. The young, vaccinated or not, will almost all be fine. The middle-aged and elderly unvaccinated, though, are still in for a rough ride, or death.

Get your jabs. Follow the prophet, I guess.
Learn to doubt the stories you tell about yourselves and your adversaries.

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