I became suspicious of what I now know to be the COVID Cult in the early spring months of 2020. That’s when I started seeing statements such as this pop up on the internet:
“In most cases, herd immunity is not achieved without an effective vaccine. For COVID-19, the percentage of the population that needs to be infected to achieve herd immunity is estimated to be between 70% and 90%…Those who believe “COVID-19 parties” are examples of how herd immunity can be achieved are misguidedly thinking that the virus just needs to run its course and it will be gone.”
That was written by Dr. David G. Hill, MD. MD, as in Medical Doctor. It’s even still up on the website of the American Lung Association, which is far from some fringe group.
I’ve never judged the average guy for not understanding public health principles, but that was written by a medical doctor.
With statements like that, I would be happy to dismiss Dr. Hill as a lone quack saying quacky things. But I saw the same theme popping up from medical institutions: “Herd immunity has never been achieved without a vaccine!”
Even on the surface it’s an aburd statement. Disease outbreaks are as old as humanity, and the first rudimentary vaccines are only 225 years old. Just look at this (really neat!) slideshow. How did any of the outbreaks in the 900 years prior to the first vaccine ever come to an end if “herd immunity is impossible without a vaccine”? It’s because, contrary to Dr. Hill’s surprising assertion, viruses do “just run their course and are gone” unless they can find a reservoir in which to reproduce without creating disease.
And let’s just ignore how the very concept of herd immunity was established in the 1930s by observing pediatric measles cases… three decades before the first effective measles vaccine was created in the 1960s.
Dr. Hill’s statement that “herd immunity is estimated to be between 70% to 90%” is just a single example of a common yet wildly inaccurate narrative moving around the press. Dr. Hill’s statement (and the many like it) is totally, completely wrong. Herd immunity is far from “an estimate.”
You see, there’s an actual formula for the herd immunity threshold that pins down the exact percentage. And it’s surprisingly simple, too.
1-(1/R0)
That’s it. That’s the herd immunity threshold formula. It’s as difficult as a practice problem in a 7th grade algebra class. R0 is the base reproduction ratio, which is just the average number of people one infected person can infect. For COVID-19, R0 is 2.5; one person can infect 2.5 other people on average. For flu, R0 averages 1.4. Measles is highly infectious at between 12 and 18.
Now lets plug in 2.5 for R0.
1-(1/2.5) = 0.6.
State it as a percentage: and you get the COVID-19 herd immunity threshold: 60%.
Not 70%. Not 90%. Not “we think it’s between” or “it could be.” The COVID-19 herd immunity threshold is inarguably 60%.
You’ll notice that nowhere in that insanely simple formula is there a variable for “vaccine.”
That’s because herd immunity has nothing to do with vaccines. Herd immunity is only affected by R0, the average number of people one person can infect. An effective vaccine can lower that number, as can medications and the cultural, social, and genetic predispositions of a population. The number will be higher in denser urban areas and lower in sparsely populated rural areas. Countries with better transportation networks will have higher R0s.
But once you pin down R0, herd immunity can be scratched out on the back of an envelope. And the higher the R0, the faster the virus is moving through the population.
Certainly we’ve seen a lot of lies, half-truths, and incoherent contradictions from the CDC (logo below) and its ilk, but it’s hard to say if Dr. Hill is lying here.
As a physician, Dr. Hill is an expert in patient care, not public health. It’s quite likely he just doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Unfortunately, Western society mistakes “physician” for “omniscient unquestionable god,” which has tragically contributed to a lot of the COVID mistakes we’ve seen in the last two years.
The next time somebody tells you only a vaccine can stop COVID, ask them what the herd immunity threshold formula is. Chances are they’ve never even heard of it.
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