Dr. Fauci “not convinced” coronavirus developed naturally

[Silvanus]

That is what herd immunity is. That is the point at which outbreaks are sufficiently unlikely. That does mean that the herd immunity threshold is variable depending on the behavior of the population. Typically, when we talk about herd immunity, we're talking about under normal conditions and behavior, but that's certainly going to be a different number in different times and places. Herd immunity in rural Kansas is not the same as herd immunity in the New York subway. So it is both accurate and inaccurate in a sense to say we've hit herd immunity in a lockdown, because in a sense we have hit a threshold of immunity sufficient to lower the rate of transmission beneath 1 new infection per infection, but in the other sense that is not indicative of what would happen without lockdown procedures in place.

Where I live, all the schools and businesses are open (well, summer break is going on, but they were open before that), the masks are optional and largely left off in public, sporting events are going on, people are sitting in close quarters, and the rates of infection are still dropping. That's an indication of herd immunity.

This is simply not the working definition, and it's transparently nonsense. Even phoenixmgs doesn't believe the definition you've given above.

According to this definition, "herd immunity" can be gained and lost and gained and lost several times over the course of a single week. Not very valuable, then, is it? According to this definition, "herd immunity" can be gained.... without anybody immune, if the virus is simply insufficiently transmissible.

Hell! According to this pointless definition, we have "herd immunity" to any disease that just doesn't have a major presence, even if any introduction of the pathogen would cause an outbreak!

 

[tstorm823]

According to this definition, "herd immunity" can be gained.... without anybody immune, if the virus is simply insufficiently transmissible.

Yes. Exactly.

Hell! According to this pointless definition, we have "herd immunity" to any disease that just doesn't have a major presence, even if any introduction of the pathogen would cause an outbreak!

No, not this. If the introduction would likely cause an outbreak, you don't have herd immunity.

 

[Silvanus]

Yes. Exactly.

So in your definition, "herd immunity" doesn't even actually indicate immunity at all.

No, not this. If the introduction would likely cause an outbreak, you don't have herd immunity.

...But the RE is below 1. If that's not enough, you're acknowledging that that's not all there is to it.

You have to have immunity. Obviously.

 

[tstorm823]

...But the RE is below 1. If that's not enough, you're acknowledging that that's not all there is to it.

RE isn't below 1. The meaning of RE is the average number of new victims that are infected by each infected person. On a population scale, it's the number of new infections divided by the number infected in the previous generation of infections. If a virus is not present in a population, that calculation is 0/0, which whatever it is, that's not a number less than 1.

 

[Seanchaidh]

herd immunity (noun)

resistance to the spread of an infectious disease within a population that is based on pre-existing immunity of a high proportion of individuals as a result of previous infection or vaccination.
"the level of vaccination needed to achieve herd immunity varies by disease but ranges from 83 to 94 percent"

Oxford Languages English dictionary via Google™

 

[tstorm823]

Herd immunity | Vaccination, Contagion & Immunity | Britannica

Herd immunity, state in which a large proportion of a population is able to repel an infectious disease, thereby limiting the extent to which the disease can spread from person to person. Herd immunity can be conferred through natural immunity, previous exposure to the disease, or vaccination. An

www.britannica.com

herd immunity:
immunology

Herd immunity, also called community immunity, state in which a large proportion of a population is able to repel an infectious disease, thereby limiting the extent to which the disease can spread from person to person. Herd immunity can be conferred through natural immunity, previous exposure to the disease, or vaccination. An entire population does not need to be immune to attain herd immunity. Rather, herd immunity can occur when the population density of persons who are susceptible to infection is sufficiently low so as to minimize the likelihood of an infected individual coming in contact with a susceptible individual. Herd immunity can prevent sustained disease spread in populations, thereby protecting susceptible individuals from infection. It is applicable, however, only to infectious diseases that can be spread by human contact.

The percentage of the population that must be immune to produce herd immunity differs for each infectious disease. A disease that is highly contagious, such as measles, requires a higher proportion of immune persons to achieve herd immunity than a disease that is less contagious, such as tuberculosis. In addition, individual- and population-level characteristics that influence disease spread—such as susceptibility, demographics, and social habits—affect herd immunity.

Herd immunity is an important consideration for mass vaccination practices. Even if a cheap, safe, and effective vaccine exists, resource, logistical, and societal constraints can prevent the vaccination of 100 percent of the population. A reasonable target level of vaccination may be to achieve the threshold level of herd immunity (H), which is calculated as H > 1 − 1/R0, where R0 is the basic reproductive rate (or reproduction number; the number of infections an infected individual can be expected to produce on entry into a susceptible population). Mass vaccination can be successful through principles of herd immunity. Although disease outbreaks can still occur, they generally do so to a lesser extent than if herd immunity had not been achieved.

Lets start here for a better understanding than a half sentence dictionary definition. Herd immunity threshold is calculated by 1 - 1 / R0. If R0 is like 5, sure, it'll land in the typical range stated above. If R0 is 1.1, the herd immunity threshold, by definition, is 9.1% of the population or greater. It's not an explicit statement of high immunity, but rather a statement of sufficient levels of immunity for the specific virus. I underlined the part mentioning natural immunity as well, as that's important in understanding a population with no exposure to a virus can still have herd immunity based on natural immunity, which is a distinction worth making when analyzing different local populations. A disease may be effectively unable to outbreak in a regular mixed population, but cause problems even with the same behavior if a local group is highly immunocompromised.

What's really important is that long sentence in the middle, herd immunity is when the population density of susceptible persons is sufficiently low to minimize contact between an infected and susceptible individual. There are multiple factors at play in that, not just a high percentage of immunized or previously exposed people.

So what is the relation to Re:

“When will it be over?”: An introduction to viral reproduction numbers, R0 and Re | The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine

www.cebm.net

"At any time, Re = R0 × (1 – Pi), where Pi is the proportion of population who are immune at that time."

I will point out, that sentence is poorly stated in a vacuum, as that equation is only valid if all other variables are controlled between Re and R0, you have to be talking about Re and R0 given the same behaviors in the population. But let's do some algebra. Pi is the proportion who are immune at any time. H is the threshold of immunity where herd immunity kicks in. So if we only care about the value of Re at the herd immunity threshold H, we can substitute H in for Pi, and then substitute in the definition of H as 1-1/R0.
Re = R0 x (1-Pi)
Re = R0 x (1-H)
Re = R0 x (1-(1-1/R0))
Re = R0 x (1-1+1/R0)
Re = R0 x 1/R0
Re = 1

And then to iron out the finer details, they did say H > 1-1/R0, rather than equal to, but if you put a bigger number in for Pi, Re goes down, so the inequality there would be:

Re < 1, at herd immunity.

Tadah.

 

[Silvanus]

RE isn't below 1. The meaning of RE is the average number of new victims that are infected by each infected person. On a population scale, it's the number of new infections divided by the number infected in the previous generation of infections. If a virus is not present in a population, that calculation is 0/0, which whatever it is, that's not a number less than 1.

This is a mathematical quirk, nothing more.

Say the virus is present in a single individual in an isolated home, then. It is effectively, but not literally, zero. The calculation is no longer "0/0", and the RE is indeed a number less than 1.

Yet an introduction of any significant viral presence could cause an outbreak, and herd immunity is obviously not present.

I will point out, that sentence is poorly stated in a vacuum, as that equation is only valid if all other variables are controlled between Re and R0, you have to be talking about Re and R0 given the same behaviors in the population. But let's do some algebra. Pi is the proportion who are immune at any time. H is the threshold of immunity where herd immunity kicks in. So if we only care about the value of Re at the herd immunity threshold H, we can substitute H in for Pi, and then substitute in the definition of H as 1-1/R0.
Re = R0 x (1-Pi)
Re = R0 x (1-H)
Re = R0 x (1-(1-1/R0))
Re = R0 x (1-1+1/R0)
Re = R0 x 1/R0
Re = 1

This shows the perils of using pure algebra to address a question like this, where two of the symbols (RE and R0) are not solely stand-ins for values, but have their own distinct meanings.

R0 has a distinct, separate meaning. You cannot factor it into an equation purely as a value, and come to a conclusion that doesn't take that distinct meaning into account.

Re < 1, at herd immunity.

Tadah.

Do you see the difference between "RE <1, at herd immunity" and "RE <1 means herd immunity has been achieved"?

 

[tstorm823]

This is a mathematical quirk, nothing more.

It's not, it's the definitions of the terms.

Say the virus is present in a single individual in an isolated home, then. It is effectively, but not literally, zero. The calculation is no longer "0/0", and the RE is indeed a number less than 1.

RE isn't necessarily a number less than 1 in that case. RE represents the average number of infections that would be spread from a random individual in the current circumstances. Hitting a statistical outlier on the first infection does not change the theoretical value of RE. If the first person infected is isolated by dumb luck and the virus never spreads, that does not change what you expect to happen if the virus infects another random individual, which is what RE is meant to represent.

Do you see the difference between "RE <1, at herd immunity" and "RE <1 means herd immunity has been achieved"?

No. I'm sure you're trying to suggest that the former doesn't eliminate the possibility of RE being less than one without herd immunity, but as the person who typed that sentence, I'm going to insist that interpretation is wrong.

 

[Agema]

Oh wow. I've been on holiday two weeks and this is still going!

A disease that starts so very transmissible in humans is not normal, which is why the former CDC director thinks it was from the lab as the most likely scenario.

We don't know its origins, therefore we don't know whether it "started" so transmissible. For instance, imagine that a slightly crap proto SARS-CoV-2 had actually been doing the rounds in humans for months beforehand, but going unidentified because it was significantly less effective and so no-one picked up on it.

How are you gonna provide an article debunking something that's been fucking proven by real-world data? Marty said late April and it fucking happened in late April.

A right answer with bad reasoning is just a lucky guess. Makary is just an amateur.

He's wrong anyway because someone paying more attention would have noticed the issue of new variants - delta, obviously. He was in essence saying the USA would have herd immunity to less problematic variant(s) that won't be the ones doing the damage in the future. And indeed, daily infections in the USA bottomed out 21st June and have been rising since, a period when the prevalence of delta amongst new infections has massively increased.

Given existing examples there's every likelihood the USA can be back over 100k infections a day in a month's time, almost certainly over 50k a day as delta really gets going. The good news is that due to some protection from prior infection and vaccination, Americans will probably only be dying at ~500 a day instead of several thousand.

 

[Silvanus]

It's not, it's the definitions of the terms.

The fact that with literally no viral load in a population, the equation becomes 0/0, is meaningless.

A negligible viral presence in the population creates the same outcome but avoids the mathematical explanation you offered.

RE isn't necessarily a number less than 1 in that case. RE represents the average number of infections that would be spread from a random individual in the current circumstances. Hitting a statistical outlier on the first infection does not change the theoretical value of RE. If the first person infected is isolated by dumb luck and the virus never spreads, that does not change what you expect to happen if the virus infects another random individual, which is what RE is meant to represent.

Yes, I know what RE is.

In the circumstance I outlined, the average would be 0. The RE is at 0. It was a circumstance given as an example of a negligible viral presence.

The RE is at 0. But the introduction of any significant viral presence would cause an outbreak.

No. I'm sure you're trying to suggest that the former doesn't eliminate the possibility of RE being less than one without herd immunity, but as the person who typed that sentence, I'm going to insist that interpretation is wrong.

So, you're just going to insist the former implies the latter? In the face of demonstrable circumstances in which that isn't the case?

 

[tstorm823]

A negligible viral presence in the population creates the same outcome but avoids the mathematical explanation you offered.

The RE is at 0. But the introduction of any significant viral presence would cause an outbreak.

I don't think you get it. If RE for a virus is greater than 1, then a single infection will turn into an outbreak the majority of the time. It's not about a significant presence. If RE is 3, and just one average person is infected, the 1 becomes 3, the 3 becomes 9, the 9 becomes 27, so on and so forth. There are statistical outliers, where you might have the first case hit a hermit and do nothing, or you might have the first case hit a bartender on a Saturday night and immediately infect 100 people. The doesn't change the value of RE on the spot, because you'd still expect 3 infections from an average case. RE isn't zero in the case you laid out.

If a virus has an RE over 1, it has the likelihood of spreading exponentially into an epidemic. There is no significant or negligible presence that changes that math, scale is only going to lessen the impact of statistical outliers.

 

[Silvanus]

I don't think you get it. If RE for a virus is greater than 1, then a single infection will turn into an outbreak the majority of the time. It's not about a significant presence. If RE is 3, and just one average person is infected, the 1 becomes 3, the 3 becomes 9, the 9 becomes 27, so on and so forth. There are statistical outliers, where you might have the first case hit a hermit and do nothing, or you might have the first case hit a bartender on a Saturday night and immediately infect 100 people. The doesn't change the value of RE on the spot, because you'd still expect 3 infections from an average case. RE isn't zero in the case you laid out.

If a virus has an RE over 1, it has the likelihood of spreading exponentially into an epidemic. There is no significant or negligible presence that changes that math, scale is only going to lessen the impact of statistical outliers.

OK, no, you don't get it.

A virus does not inherently have an RE. An RE is the product of the virus and the environmental circumstances surrounding it. So the same virus, in two different situations, can have wildly different RE numbers.

It's existing community penetration is absolutely one such environmental factor. Ditto its geographic distribution. Both of these, if particularly advantageous, can mitigate even a highly transmissible virus to the extent that its RE is under 1 in that community.

And so we come to situations in which environmental factors suppress the RE... but if such environmental factors altered, an outbreak could easily occur.

RE does not necessarily require, or indicate, mass immunity.

 

[Agema]

snip

snip

Your argument is a right old mess: I think you're actually pretty much both correct in all major points, you're more just somehow managing to talk past each other or dwelling on the nitpicks.

* * *

You would be better off thinking about R0 as Re at a specific snapshot in time: time zero, when the infection first arrives. We could of course create a notional R10 (t = 10 days), R100 (t = 100 days) etc. as well, although few would probably bother given the limited utility. Whereas the theoretical R0 is a "snapshot" under circumstances fixed in time, Re is a live, ongoing factor that is under permanent change both from circumstances (immunity, weather, behaviour, etc.) It can therefore go up, and down. But you'd hope mostly down, under the influence of immunity.

Thus in fact both R0 and Re depend on environmental circumstances, such as the likelihood of individuals meeting in a way such that transmission is likely. The R0 for France is not the same as it is for Italy, or Uzbekistan, or Thailand just as the Re won't be, either. A country that clocks and infection coming could reduce its R0 by taking pre-emptive measures. R0 is valuable because what the R0 is in an another place can give an idea of how bad it might be before it hits the one we're in. We cannot really know what either of them are until the infection is occurring and infections are measured. R0 is thus practically unmeasurable in a real world environment: it is only worked out by measuring Re for a while, and then working back from that with a mathematical model to create an estimate

As noted, rural Kansas is not New York City. Obviously, they can have different R values. In this sense, national averages can be quite misleading, because different things are going on at different local levels. Thus on a national scale a theoretical Re can be below one, but the infection rates increase considerably to give a measured Re above 1, because the infection has just gone rampant in a subset demographic group with high susceptibility despite it being quiescent elsewhere. I say this because I think you need to be a bit careful about saying things like "R<1 means an outbreak is unlikely to occur" or "R>1 means an outbreak is likely to occur". You can of course have lots of outbreaks with an R<1: they'll just tend to be small and restricted - although with the caveat that "small" exists with perspective: 10 million is people is small in the context of the USA, but it's still a lot of people. I think if you both step back and take a look at what you're writing, you're both acknowledging this in ways, just in different ways that are somehow failing to meet.

 

[tstorm823]

Your argument is a right old mess: I think you're actually pretty much both correct in all major points, you're more just somehow managing to talk past each other or dwelling on the nitpicks.

The argument isn't about so much the reality as it is about the terminology, true, but I don't think that's just nitpicks. I'm not a particular fan of being told for like a year that I don't know what I'm talking about because the user saying so doesn't agree with my use of terms.

I think you need to be a bit careful about saying things like "R<1 means an outbreak is unlikely to occur" or "R>1 means an outbreak is likely to occur".

I think that is the careful terminology. Likely and unlikely are terms that leave open the very real possibility that the opposite outcome will occur. If you scale up high enough, likelihood changes, sure. Like, the chances of someone you know getting struck by lightning this week certainly count as unlikely, the chance of someone on the planet Earth being struck by lightning this week is probably close to 1. And to that I see your point, but I don't think there is better verbiage to cover all scenarios. You could call getting struck by lightning uncommon globally, but that fails to work on a small scale, since it implies that it does happen some amount of the time when it probably doesn't. "Unlikely" applies better to a local subset of people, which is also where R values really mean something, so I'm inclined to stand by my phrasing.

RE does not necessarily require, or indicate, mass immunity.

Correct. But herd immunity =/= mass imunity. RE is less than or equal to 1 at the threshold for herd immunity, in a given set of circumstances. Whether that occurs with a mass number of immune people or none at all. If the R0 of a virus is less than 1 to begin with, the herd immunity threshold is 0%. These are mathematically connected terms given all other variables remaining roughly equal.

 

[Agema]

I think that is the careful terminology.

I would argue a term like "become epidemic" is safer than "have an outbreak", because you can clearly have a load of localised outbreaks with R<1 and infections that don't go progress far with R>1. Epidemic implies a more appropriate, larger sense of scale than the much more variable term "outbreak".

 

[tstorm823]

I would argue a term like "become epidemic" is safer than "have an outbreak", because you can clearly have a load of localised outbreaks with R<1 and infections that don't go progress far with R>1. Epidemic implies a more appropriate, larger sense of scale than the much more variable term "outbreak".

That's fair. In my previous post, I was only considering the phrasing on "likely", now I see what you're saying.

 

[Seanchaidh]

"Unchallenged Orientalism": Why Liberals Suddenly Love the Lab Leak Theory

The lab leak theory bears a striking resemblance to the WMD hoax of 2002, not only in the fact that one of its key players is literally the same journalist using potentially the same anonymous sources, but also in the bipartisan political and media support it enjoys.

www.mintpressnews.com

But herd immunity =/= mass imunity. RE is less than or equal to 1 at the threshold for herd immunity, in a given set of circumstances.

if that set of circumstances is a lockdown, that's not "herd immunity". It may be herd something, but immunity it is not.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

And a lot of experts disagree, and I don't find that case compelling because diseases sprout up frequently enough that are quite transmissible relatively early on. It doesn't sound implausible at all, and it's the pervading theory. I don't see why I should trust "source: dude trust me" on this one.

The point isn't whether what theory is more plausible, it's that they're both plausible and we were told that the lab leak theory was 100% impossible, which was a lie.

I
don't
give
a
single
flying
fuck
about
Facebook
it's
not
a
medical
journal.

I can't spell it out any plainer than that, go cry about your need for media obsession in matters of science elsewhere.

I don't care about Facebook either (I can't stand social media at all), but saying Facebook or any platform censoring discussion of something isn't censoring is asinine.

And the fact that I posted links to researches/scientists that said there was censoring going on with medical journals means nothing?

Nobody rational would say there was herd immunity in that circumstance. There was no immune majority. But the RE was below 1, that's my point.

You said herd immunity = RE<1. This categorically demonstrates that's not true.

I didn't think I had to say the common sense stuff. I don't talk to people like children that don't know anything.

Then why did you argue that RE<1 = Herd immunity!!??

Don't act incredulous when it's pointed out how transparently false that is.

Because when everything is open and the RE<1, that points to herd immunity. Do I have to point out why herd immunity is not a thing in Taiwan even though everything is open? It's common fucking sense. So let me rephrase that first sentence so you can fully understand it; Because when everything is open and the RE<1 AND THE VIRUS IS WIDESPREAD AND NOT CONTAINED, that points to herd immunity.

"You need people immune". No fucking shit.

But the RE does not translate directly to the level of immunity. And even with the country open, you cannot conclude from a low RE that we have herd immunity, because the RE fluctuates and is affected by dozens of factors aside from immunity.

Hence why even outside of lockdown, the RE in the UK went below and then back above 1. Because RE<1 doesn't necessarily mean herd immunity.

I never claimed RE translates directly to level of immunity but it's a pretty good sign when people are back to normal life and cases are going down. There's probably a somewhat decent chunk of people that are still scared to go out and do stuff, people in the Bay area are still masking outside with like a 70% vaccination rate LMAO, so you don't quite have a 100% normal mixing of people yet.

I don't live in the UK obviously but from my perspective the UK isn't "open". Do you guys have packed sporting events and concerts? And Freedom Day hasn't even happened yet in the UK.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

We don't know its origins, therefore we don't know whether it "started" so transmissible. For instance, imagine that a slightly crap proto SARS-CoV-2 had actually been doing the rounds in humans for months beforehand, but going unidentified because it was significantly less effective and so no-one picked up on it.

Like I said many times before, I don't have a horse in this race, I don't really care where it came from, I very much don't like the censoring of information that happened. There are several possibilities and all should be able to be discussed.

A right answer with bad reasoning is just a lucky guess. Makary is just an amateur.

He's wrong anyway because someone paying more attention would have noticed the issue of new variants - delta, obviously. He was in essence saying the USA would have herd immunity to less problematic variant(s) that won't be the ones doing the damage in the future. And indeed, daily infections in the USA bottomed out 21st June and have been rising since, a period when the prevalence of delta amongst new infections has massively increased.

Given existing examples there's every likelihood the USA can be back over 100k infections a day in a month's time, almost certainly over 50k a day as delta really gets going. The good news is that due to some protection from prior infection and vaccination, Americans will probably only be dying at ~500 a day instead of several thousand.

Marty must really be like the luckiest person then because he's been right way more often than Fauci and all these other "experts". The "experts" also predicted that the US was going to get another wave in March from the UK variant. The current rise in cases could be similar to early April of this year. The current cases are still well below flu during a normal flu season with covid now having a similar fatality rate and you want people to be extremely concerned? The new case counts per 100K are very low in the vast vast vast majority of the counties in the US. I spend most my time in Cook (which contains Chicago, IL) and Lake (IN) counties and the new case count per 100K is 3 and 5 respectively. Variants, shmariants.

Tracking Covid-19 cases in the US

Track the spread of coronavirus in the United States with maps and updates on cases and deaths.

www.cnn.com

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

You're exactly the sort of person who said "well, well, well, looks like we didn't need to worry about Y2K" while ignoring the people who put in a lot of work to avert a doomsday scenario.