Variant From the UK Likely Accounts for Up To 30% of Covid Infections in US, Fauci Says (cnbc.com) 131
The highly contagious variant first identified in the U.K. likely accounts for up to 30% of Covid-19 infections in the United States, White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday. From a report: The variant, called B.1.1.7, has also been reported in at least 94 countries and detected in 50 jurisdictions in the U.S., Fauci said during a White House news briefing on the pandemic, adding that the numbers are likely growing. The U.K. first identified the B.1.1.7 strain, which appears to spread more easily and quickly than other variants, last fall. It has since spread across the world, including the U.S., Fauci said. U.S. researchers have identified 5,567 cases through genetic sequencing as of Thursday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. U.S. health officials say the variant could become the dominant strain in the U.S. by the end of this month or in early April. New variants are especially a concern for public health officials as they could become more resistant to antibody treatments and vaccines. Top health officials, including Fauci, have urged Americans to get vaccinated as quickly as possible, saying the virus can't mutate if it can't infect hosts and replicate.
WTF? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If you have to feed the AC, can't you at least give it a meaningful Subject?
Re: (Score:2)
Uncontained Covid (Score:2)
Actually they seem to be filtering the FPs some of the time these days, but the main thing about this topic is how badly most countries have done in containing the coronavirus. On the one hand I don't like some aspects of the Chinese response, but on the other hand this could have been a much worse disease and no one knew what was going on at first. The Chinese reacted like it might be a zombie apocalypse, but most other countries seem to have learned very little from the experience...
I just can't get over
Re: (Score:3)
I'd want to go to the Security Council at the United Nations and say,
"Look, after SARS, MERS, Swine Flu, H5N1 and now Covid, we've all got the memo: changes in the way that humans live are creating the conditions necessary for the emergence of deadly new pathogens. This isn't a time to start pointing fingers or apportioning blame, it is time to recognise this and take sensible, pragmatic steps to protect our species...
Let's agree to a set of protocols to protect our popul
Re: (Score:2)
Boy, I hope you didn't write that entire thing in response to my minor comment, though it was well written. However, some parts are already there. For example, much of what you described is already covered by WHO, and you didn't even mention that agency. (Maybe you could rework it as a submission? Several recent stories would have been relevant to your comments.)
Re: (Score:2)
Part 2 of my reply. Some part of the two-paragraph original version was seen as ASCII art.
In terms of other international cooperation, the mindless (but-money-driven) hostility of "He whose name need not be spoken anymore" almost certainly made this particular situation worse. Before this disease appeared in China there were some American experts on the ground in Wuhan, but they were pulled out. I keep wondering if they could have nipped this in the bud by bypassing some of the Chinese authorities who were
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Just check all the idiots on the news, on YouTube, etc. Still morons out there who think wearing a mask is to protect themselves, so they choose not to wear one.
Restaurants, etc are still open in most countries too and health officials are still pushing the "clean hands, clean surfaces" thing while most infections happen through airborne contamination.
Idiots who don't follow rules + bad rules based on wrong research = pandemic continues.
Re: (Score:2)
>"+ bad rules based on wrong research = pandemic continues."
Bad rules- like saying those who are fully vaccinated need to wear masks and social distance. An unscientific way to really push more people to NOT bother getting vaccinated.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm guessing it's so that unvaccinated people cannot stop wearing masks while pretending to have been vaccinated. I'm also not sure if all these new vaccines prevent you from being a carrier/transmitter or not?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
A lot of the world doesn't. I have a friend whose wife was exposed and they're going out to a fish fry tonight, and to a school function for their son tomorrow. I told him he's crazy, and he said he is going to "share."
I hope you mean FORMER friend. Because people like that you just do not need in your life.
Re: (Score:2)
1. It might already have been in some of those places before it was detected in the UK. Just because the UK has relatively good screening capabilities and found it first, that doesn't mean it started there.
2. It might have evolved independently in more than one place. Not all of those cases necessarily originated from a single source.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Just because the UK has relatively good screening capabilities" relative to what?
Relative to 200 other countries. https://ourworldindata.org/cor... [ourworldindata.org]
they've been letting people in from abroad without any testing of them/forced isolation at all.
That has been a confusing policy choice. I suspect the fear was damaging international relations but the eventual inquiry will need to dig deep into this one.
Re: (Score:2)
I just don't get this. How can it have reached 98 countries in 6 months, in the middle of an existing pandemic
That's 6 months since it was identified but at that point it was already widespread in the UK. So it originated sometime well before that and possibly not even in the UK.
unless most of the world doesn't give a flying fuck about containing the spread of COVID?
They don't. Have you seen how many people are flying to other countries just for holidays? Last Christmas we had six members of our provincial government [ctvnews.ca] travel abroad for holidays at the same time as they were telling everyone to stay at home and at least one of those idiots went to the UK. That's how variants spread, especially ones 70%
Re: (Score:3)
There is no chance it was wide spread in the UK when it was first identified. That's because ~10% of all positive tests are sequenced (one of the few things this government have got right). As such if it was widespread it would have been picked up earlier. It is also why we don't know if it actually originated in the UK or elsewhere as most countries are not sequencing positive tests are any where near the same rate.
Re: WTF? (Score:3)
Yeah. People seem to conflate "first discovered" with "originated". Who's to say it wasn't already in the US, or indeed elsewhere? ... Same could be said of the outbreak in Wuhan, and indeed has been.
"First Identified" != "From" (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be more accurate to say that it was "first identified" in the UK, not that it "originated" in the UK.
If we allow the media to make the mistake of calling B.1.1.7 "the UK Strain" or implying that it "originated" in the UK, then all that's going to happen is that we demonize the UK. Effect? Well, maybe travel restrictions get imposed on UK residents.
But given the generally very poor response the US has had to Covid-19 up until January this year, given the huge numbers of people who refuse to take sensible precautions [the "never wear a mask" among us] the chances of the US originating a "US Strain" before everyone gets vaccinated cannot be overlooked. At which point US citizens acquire the same negative connotation currently being implied by this inaccurate reporting.
We need to remember the old proverb, "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones..." [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:1)
I wouldn't worry about that, friend. Most people in other countries already had a bad opinion about half of the U.S.-Americans.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Yeah. A very broad guideline would be anyone who voted for Trump in 2020, and anyone who didn't vote in 2020, as your starting point.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Everyone trying to get in (Score:2)
from the people at the border pleading that Mr. Biden honor his promises to the coders and engineers on H1B visas. I guess they want to be in the U.S. to set things straight?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Dude in German arrested for ragging on Erdogan? (Score:3)
Other countries have the same kind of legal structure and rights as the constitution. Does that make those other countries exceptional too? If not, why not? After all many of these legal structures, including the constitution, go back to ideas that started to be developed from the Magna Carta. If so, then how can the US be exceptional if many other countries are too -- that's the definition of not exceptional?
The Germans arrested a stand-up comic for saying Turkish President Erdogan has relations with barnyard animals.
Such a thing would never happen in the U.S. because of the First Amendment. Or at least that was the case a few years ago when comics were allowed to say whatever they wanted in telling a joke because the Founding Fathers valued free political discourse, even if it took a coarse or vulgar turn. The Constitution is a Living Document, so that may have changed.
The dude might be arrested in Engl
Re: (Score:2)
The Germans arrested a stand-up comic for saying Turkish President Erdogan has relations with barnyard animals.
That would never happen in many countries I can think of -- New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the UK, South Korea, ... Or more precisely it would happen at exactly the same rate as it does in the US. Many countries have robust free speech protections.
Are you sure? (Score:2)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/... [www.cbc.ca]
Don't tell me that a Canadian right-winger criticizing an entire culture is different from a German stand-up comic telling a vulgar joke about one person, a political leader taking his country in the direction of dictatorship.
Canada may have reasons for prosecuting Mark Steyn to protect the civil rights and safety of vulnerable minorities, but Germany felt justified to prosecute the comic based on the diplomatic posture they wanted to preserve with a NATO ally, but neit
Re: (Score:2)
So from one example we make such broad conclusions.
Look up how President Adams applied the Sedition Act, how President Wilson suppressed free speech under the guise of war time security, how SCOTUS determined that the first amendment does not protect obscenity, how the so called indecency standard came to be for a while, how the Federal and State governments used force, including deadly force, to shut down peaceful protests over Vietnam. The US has a long history of censorship and prosecuting people for
Mr. "America is Back" won handily (Score:2)
but Donald Trump is leasing a suite of rooms, rent free in your head.
Re:"First Identified" != "From" (Score:5, Funny)
As a dual-national US/UK citizen, that means that I have to hate myself twice.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Screw that the Kent virus
Re: (Score:2)
Because it was first identified in the south east of England specifically Kent. The UK has been sequencing ~10% of all positive tests, which is why last time I checked ~40% of all variants world wide had been identified in the UK.
I did see a recent interview with Fauci where he said the USA where going to start doing something similar now, and that the previous administration had blocked/turned down the idea of doing it.
Re: (Score:2)
How about his little gem from the headline "New variants are especially a concern for public health officials as they could become more resistant to antibody treatments and vaccines." I struggle to believe anyone would be stupid enough to write that. It is not blanket across the board resistant to antibodies or vaccines, that is idiotic and fear mongering bullshit. It is not recognised by the body, based upon the use of the existing astrazenica vaccine (that is the only one the poms know about unless they h
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Pretty sure they've already identified a couple of strains that (with high probability) originated in the States. However in terms of assigning blame it's hard not to say the US has earned more than the Chinese. Hard for SARS-CoV-2 to mutate where it has been eradicated, and the Chinese have done more eradication than anyone. (And yes, the double entendre was deliberate. (However, in the context of an unknown disease eradication seems justified. Purely a matter of our good luck that Covid-19 mortality wasn'
Re:"First Identified" != "From" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with you, but do either of us have any idea how to discourage people from regional references and labeling that support their political objectives? As a former Texian of some sort, I'm waiting for the proud, loud idiots to start screaming about the Cal Pox. Unless they can come up with more pejorative tags for those strains.
I supposed the punchline is that America has become the world's largest incubator for new variants? Why aren't I laughing?
Re:"First Identified" != "From" (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, I agree that we should be careful of labels, but I'm not sure there's much danger that most folks in the US are going to "demonize the UK." due to our strong cultural bonds with them, sometimes described as a "special relationship", first coined/described by Winston Churchill if I'm not mistaken. In general, I think most Americans have a reasonably positive view of the UK, and just because a virus mutated there, I doubt that's going to change.
Unfortunately, the US has a long history of prejudice against Asian peoples and nations, and so the resentment you see boiling up probably tends to feed on such lingering stereotypes and sub-surface prejudices. It's pretty distressing to hear about US citizens of Asian ancestry who have been harassed because of this pandemic and its Chinese origins.
Re:"First Identified" != "From" (Score:4, Funny)
There was a story on the west coast about a Chinese woman who was punched in the eye by some dolt:
Dolt: (thinking, I'll punch this old woman, the man I punched previous went down, and she's tiny) Punch!
Little Chinese Woman: Oww...why you )(&(^%, eat this board...Whack!
He ate the board she found handy nearby. Sent him to the hospital. You go girl!
Re: (Score:2)
I saw the news item. It was funny!
The little old lady had to be restrained from taking another shot at her attacker even when the police were there.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I'm not sure I'd call it "funny" (I know what you mean, not the attack, of course), but quite satisfying that she beat the attacker's ass into the ground in self defense. Unfortunately, she was rather traumatized by the attack, and is fearful about going back outside. That piece of shit also may have attacked an 83-year old Asian man as well.
Anyhow, both have relatives who set up GoFundMe pages for them, and both are doing very well so far. I dropped off a small donation for the old man, since the
Re: (Score:1)
Well, maybe travel restrictions get imposed on UK residents.
By the time the world actually thinks it will be sensible to lift travel restrictions the UK will have vaccinated such a large portion of its population as to any references to the "UK strain" to be completely and utterly irrelevant.
Your scenario is just not even remotely credible.
That's what we call it here (Score:2)
What was that about Glasshouses? (Score:2, Insightful)
Boris Johnson did nothing about COVID for 6 weeks after the first UK cases on 31st of January 2020. He was instead off gallivanting to celebrate the remarkable success of brexit and look how well that is going /irony.
He has continues to mismanage the COVID crisis every since, ignoring the exports, being too late in introducing lockdown, to haste to life lockdowns, because well business and we the worst mortality rate in the world [ourworldindata.org] despite the fact we developed one of the first vaccines.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The UK's current mortality rate is very low compared to other large Western countries. On the graph you link to, if you change "cumulative" to "7 day rolling average", you see the following:
Daily Deaths March 18th 7-day average per million people:
Italy 6.31
France 3.88
US 3.74
Spain 2.52
Germany 2.19
UK 1.60
The UK hasn't done well up until recently, but the future is looking more hopeful.
Re: (Score:2)
I know nerds are psychopathic when it come to numbers and death, but come on, at some point you just have to look at the horrific total number of deaths. Death is not reversible because life is not a game.
Re:What was that about Glasshouses? (Score:4, Interesting)
To use it to say "the UK is not that bad" when it is still the worst, and will remain comparatively the worst for all time, is psychopathic.
Evidence for that bold claim please.
Note my response to the fuckwit that posted the biased graph to promote a lie; you're going to need some actual evidence.
Real people have died, and the numbers in total is the only thing that matters. The cannot be taken back, no matter how well the daily rate looks.
Of course, what's not known is what they actually fucking died off. If you have a heart attack, fall off a tall building, get hit by a helicopter rotor on the way down, land in front of a speeding truck and get knocked into a lake where you drown then that's counted as a COVID death in the UK if you had a positive test in the past 30 days.
Excuses (Score:3)
Read the link the UK has highest per capita death rate in the world.
You sound just like this government misusing statistics to make excuses for failure.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
No, the UK does not have the highest per capita death rate in the world.
We have the highest rate of misassigning cause of death in the world. We also have almost the highest rate of testing in the world, which means even though we wrongly record deaths as being with COVID, we also more accurately record deaths from COVID than almost everybody else.
Not to mention of course your deeply cherry-picked data set. Just click the checkbox to add Belgium to that chart, for instance. Oh, look.
You're a dissembling tro
Re: "First Identified" != "From" (Score:3)
Yes.
Same can be said of the discovery in Wuhan.
California strain (Score:2)
the chances of the US originating a "US Strain" before everyone gets vaccinated cannot be overlooked
This has already happened [mercurynews.com]
He didn't just say that (Score:2)
TL;DR now is not the time to pull back public health measures. Experts have been saying all along that we're a long ways off from complete normality. And that if we try to force it we'll get more mutations, more variants and we'll have to start a
Replication - Mutation - Selection = Evolution (Score:1)
"Top health officials, including Fauci, have urged Americans to get vaccinated as quickly as possible, saying the virus can't mutate if it can't infect hosts and replicate."
The problem is that a third of Americans don't believe in evilution.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Really? One third? Is it that bad? [imdb.com]
Re: (Score:1)
The problem is not that a third of Americans don't believe in evolution, but that nearly all Trump supporters don't believe the government, and nearly all Left-leaning folks don't believe Dr. Fauci.
I'm honestly not sure why Biden still has him around, given that regardless of his scientific credentials, he can't be trusted to tell the American people the truth ("masks don't work"... then, a little later, "masks do work"). For the life of me, I can't identify who among either the Right or Left would beli
Re: (Score:2)
And where do you get this belief that the "left" doesn't believe Dr Fauci?
Re: Replication - Mutation - Selection = Evolution (Score:2)
... And the other third don't believe in vaccines. ;)
How is 'UK variant' different than 'China virus'? (Score:5, Insightful)
Either they are both offensive or neither is.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
How is 'UK variant' different than 'China virus'?
How many UK people have been assaulted [voanews.com] in the US over this?
Either they are both offensive or neither is.
You have a real blindspot for certain segments of the population getting hurt.
Re:How is 'UK variant' different than 'China virus (Score:4, Insightful)
Either they are both offensive or neither is.
Context matters. No one is trying to use "UK variant" as a way to stigmatize the British.
Re: (Score:2)
Context matters. No one is trying to use "UK variant" as a way to stigmatize the British.
Um. no, quantaman's post is NOT 'troll' and frankly neither is mine.
Re: (Score:2)
Because there's no need too. They already have British Food and British Smiles - most people think it's enough.
Re: (Score:1)
Context matters. No one is trying to use "UK variant" as a way to stigmatize the British.
Far from it! In fact, it's a Brexiteer's dream: a British product that's out-competing the Chinese competition and has already been exported to 94 countries worldwide. What better example of "global Britain" and the success of Brexit could you ask for?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Anyone still thinking that Brexit is a good idea is making the choice to say that all the death is okay and that failure is okay.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
UK has the highest death rate in Europe
No, it does not.
You really are a typical anti-brexiteer: no actual knowledge or insight.
Re: (Score:2)
Places don't belong in names (Score:3)
Both "UK Variant" and "Chinese Coronavirus" are bad names. It's not that they are offensive, it's that they're dumb.
The WHO recommended that place names no longer be used as of 2015 because they have quite a few problems. First, the tend to reflect more political issues than actual origin (the "Spanish Flu" didn't come from Spain, etc.) Second, the urge for countries not to get tagged with the name leads to coverups when we would all prefer to get accurate information. Third, there is a tendency to dis
Re: How is 'UK variant' different than 'China viru (Score:2)
They are both offensive.
Re: How is 'UK variant' different than 'China viru (Score:2)
Presumably, "UK variant" is a subset of "China virus".
Both are just lazy and bigoted.
Re: (Score:2)
The original source of the virus, has some connotation that they are at fault for the spread.
A new variation has no such implied meaning, as it is commonly known to happen randomly.
But maybe that is also because of how it has been used. I'm sure it's possible to try to assign blame to UK through "the UK variant", if one really wanted to.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The UK is definitely to blame for UK variant
You really are a tedious UK hating cunt.
If the UK is definitely to blame for the so-called UK variant, start by proving that it comes from the UK.
It was first discovered in a part of the country that has continual illegal immigration and through which a significant proportion of UK trade passes. Just because the UK identified it first doesn't mean it originated here.
But you wouldn't care about that. No, you want to make up lies about the UK. Fuck off.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
George Carlin made a great point when he said there are no 'bad words', just bad intentions. "China virus" definitely falls into that latter category.
It is worse than that ... (Score:5, Informative)
It is not only the known variants that have been identified months ago, specifically:
- B.1.1.7, first identified in Kent, UK.
Identified in Sept 2020, and found to be more contagious, as well as more virulent (makes people sicker), but no effect on immunity, so vaccines work as expected.
- B.1.1351, first identified in South Africa.
Less data available on it, but it has the E484K mutation which affects prior immunity, so vaccines are less effective, but still effective. Janssen and Novavax tested their vaccine in South Africa while this variant was running wild, and there is reduced efficacy, but still effective.
- P.1, first identified in three passengers arriving in Japan from Brazil
Also has the E484K mutation, and hence evades immunity. It is implicated in why Brazil saw a huge second wave, despite estimates putting those who got infected in the first higher than 65% (can't remember the exact figure).
So these are the known variants, and the data is not complete on their infectiousness, virulence and immune evasion.
But there are other variants that yet have to be characterized and tested.
There is the B.1.526 variant first identified in New York [nih.gov].
And there is a variant in Ontario, Canada that is not identified, yet it is spreading very fast, crowding out all other variants. See the graph in the daily report, figures 5 and 6 [ontario.ca]. It may turn out to be the B.1.526 variant, or something new. But it is not B.1.1.7, B.1.1351, nor P.1 for sure. It is causing a third wave, and we are at the beginning of it.
Here is my informed opinion: there are much more variants out there, specially in places that have the pandemic raging on. They are just not detected, because not much genomic sequencing is being done. The UK sequences 10% of all positive samples, and that is why they detected the B.1.1.7 early on. But places like South Africa, Brazil (note that their variant was discovered in Japan), and perhaps India and some African countries must have variants all over the place.
We are just seeing evolution happen before our eyes, and most of us just participate gladly in it by refusing to wear masks, not avoiding contact with others, and general apathy towards the virus and pandemic.
Food for though ...
Re: (Score:2)
You forgot the one that was first identified in Wuhan, China.
Re: (Score:2)
I know your are trolling, but maybe someone else will read this. ...
So to their benefit, I am responding
The Wuhan form of the virus is not a 'variant', it is called the 'wild type', since it is the original species of the virus.
Actually, I did forget one, which is the D614G, which evolved in Italy in April 2020. It became the dominant variant until the three emerged. But it was not treated as a variant in the media, until others emerged.
In this a [baheyeldin.com]
evolutionary pressure on Covid-19 (Score:2)
That's for the tea! (Score:2)
No one throws our tea in the harbour and gets away with it!
Genetic changes in B.1.1.7 (Score:4, Informative)
I had written up a full diff of B.1.1.7 proteins compared to source, but Slashdot's "Looks like ASCII art" kept coming up because talking actual science on Slashdot confuses the piece of shit script that does a shitty job at preventing Nazi shit being posted by anonymous cowards. Dev or dev(s) who wrote the filter, you have one fucking job and your filters fail hard at that one task all the while making it harder for people like me who actually want to carefully explain something and instead now have to do what amounts to a hot take. Thanks so much for making this place more like Twitter except way less useful than Twitter.
This Slashdot is why your site is a pile of hotfire shit.
Needless to say. A mutation N501Y which is the 501st position in the S protein was converted from N which is Aspargine to Y which is Tryosine, allows the virus to bind better with human ACE2 receptors. It is a very "tailored to humans" change. And I would go into more detail but all my detail clearly is ASCII art!!
There's also changes to the non structural protein two and three (which because of Slashdot's piece of shit written by a third grader in intellect script, I dare not abbreviate here). These changes are specific to the human endosome transfer. The T1001I mutation does indeed break some COVID-19 tests, so false negatives in those tests will happen. There's a couple of other interesting changes, but clearly if I write anymore letter-number-letter, the ASCII art filter will kick in.
In conclusion, Slashdot is a shit site maintained by shit coders. For fuck sake, get your goddamn site in order. However, this new variant has been demonstrated, so far, to produce a spike protein that is still identifiable to the immune system for those receiving the current vaccine. However, that is not conclusive, the big thing about B.1.1.7 is that this strain is showing changes that are favorable for human to human transmission. There is a very clear path being favored and there are changes underway in the virus to go headlong down this path, that is concerning as this virus is shaping up to be very human targeting and that leads to a double-plus non-good place. Which again I would expound upon, but at this rate, I really hate Slashdot right now for forcing me to type up what amounts to my eighth edit of my comment. Fuck Slashdot's filters / Vaccine should work on current variant, but studies into that are still in the early phase.
From the epicentre of the UK variant... (Score:3, Interesting)
I live in Kent, which is where the UK variant seems to have originated from. I work in a school.
The run up to Chrisstmas last year was horrendous. The UK gov't had a so-called lockdown in place, but it allowed schools to stay open. Have a site like mine, with nearly 2000 people on site each day and it was a recipe for disaster... even during the lockdown cases rose and when it was relaxed towards Christmas they rocketed. We were reporting 1000+ cases per 100K for weeks on end, and that will of course missed some cases.
Around 20% of staff at my workplace came down with it (I managed to avoid it - so far). The concerning thing is that months later, previously healthy people in their 20s to 40s are still suffering from it - 160 heartrate when climbing stairs in one case, overwhelming fatigue in another, plenty of panters and gaspers, plus one person who's had a persistent headache since "recovering", plus fuzzy vision in one eye. They hadn't even gone to the doctor, which is plain crazy.
You do not want to catch this variant (or indeed any variany of Covid)
Re: (Score:2)
There is no "they" trying to scare you. Stop imagining another Conspiracy because you see a news story.
Re:Reminder - cases still going down (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't matter if even half of population do not get vaccinated (in reality I'm pretty sure actual number who do will be more like 70-80%), between that and fairly long lasting immunity for those who have had the virus, herd immunity is a sure thing within months.
Please don't spread that kind of misinformation. It really is dangerous.
Unless there has been a recent breakthrough, in which case it would be very surprising that it hadn't made the news, the proportion of the population needing individual immunity in order to achieve herd immunity from COVID-19 is not yet known [who.int]. We know there are other infections where that proportion can be over 90%, so half the population not being vaccinated very much could have disastrous effects. The difference between that and 70-80% might turn out to be extremely important.
Keep in mind also that these are figures for the proportion of a population with individual immunity. No vaccine offers 100% immunity. There is still considerable uncertainty about the strength and longevity of any natural immunity among those who have previously had the virus. And the potential for mutations that evade existing immunity from either source is always there.
So don't panic, but do get your vaccine please. It matters.
Also: Can't be expressed as a proportion. (Score:2)
Also: It can't be expressed as a proportion. What matters is the density of those still susceptible, their degree of contact, and the contagiousness of the virus. Those no longer susceptible - because they were immunized or had it and recovered with immunity - are background - like trees or rocks.
I expect that in cities - where people are in close contact and interact a lot -
Re: (Score:2)
I don't even want to guess what the true proportion required will end up being; we need science to answer questions like that with empirical data. I do agree with you that the situation is far more nuanced than any single overall figure can represent, though.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know what you're replying to here, but it certainly doesn't have anything to do with what I wrote before.
Re: (Score:3)
It's killing about 1400 Americans per day on average. Do I need to convert that to units of 9/11's per week for you? Or Benghazis maybe?
Re: (Score:2)
Before COVID, life was killing 8219 Americans per day. So now you're saying 8219+1400=9619 Americans are dying per day. And of that 1400 per day, 80% of them are 70+ year olds and on their death bed?
Let me know when I should start caring.
Do you plan to die when you are 70? That would probably would make the world a better place, but still the average life expectancy (M&F) is 78.5 in the US. 82 here in Canada. This virus is having the effect of actually lowering the average life expectancy in most all countries, that would not happen if those people were going to imminently die anyway.
Most of the people dying from this had many more years of life ahead of them. The idea that they were all on their deathbed waiting to die is simpl
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Reminder - cases still going down (Score:2)
> the fact you have made it this far is probably just dumb luck.
Does evolution account for "luck"?
Re: Reminder - cases still going down (Score:2)
99.8% bull fertilizer (Score:2)
Never mind the 99.8% survival rate, ...
Were the HELL do you get that bull-bleep number?
Worldometer has the world at 2.67% and the US at 2.39% death rates, not 0.2%. Even if you assume the 90.8% in the US they counted as not-yet-infected actually had it and survived (and thus that the pandemic in the US is OVER, at least until a sufficiently different version evolves), that's still over 0.2%.