Herd immunity may come sooner than expected

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Nic Lewis at Climate, etc.

Nic Lewis’s math is usually pretty solid. I hope he’s right.

The gist is that the current models that say we need 60-80% infection to reach herd immunity assume that we are all alike and in a homogeneous society, but we aren’t.

We aren’t all equally susceptible nor are we socially integrated. The same people who attend raves do not go to NASCAR races.

So, he predicts herd immunity will kick in at under 25%.

Published by Don Tabor

I am a former Chairman of the Tidewater Libertarian Party and was the 2007 LP candidate for the 14th district VA Senate. Previously, I was the Volunteer State Director for the FairTax. I am married 50 years with two grown children and 5 grandchildren.

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8 thoughts on “Herd immunity may come sooner than expected”

    1. I think it is very dependent upon what nation with regards to the curves. I don’t know how locked down Israel was. Or how tight the borders were. I think border security is really strong because of where the nation is.

      We are at least 90 days out and still getting infection rates of 20,000 day. New hotspots are popping up around the country. Texas is one of the states with that problem.

      “ It turns out that the peak of the virus’ spread has been behind us for about two weeks now, and will probably fade within two more weeks..
      The data indicates that the lockdown policy can be stopped within a few days and replaced by a policy of moderate social distancing.”

      The article is from April 13. Many countries are experiencing at best a flattened curve or still rising after 70 days.

      Time will tell.

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      1. RE: “I think it is very dependent upon what nation with regards to the curves.”

        You didn’t read the paper.

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        1. I did. I know he said it applies to every group.

          But it doesn’t seem that it has.

          The US has had the virus since early February, perhaps earlier. That would be almost 120 days and our numbers are holding at 20,000 cases per day with a death toll of between 1200-2000 per day.

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  2. Fascination article, though I will admit my eyes glazed over with all the math.

    Although it might be true that various groups don’t commingle much, it only take the most casual contact with an infected person.

    So the NASCAR fans and Rave dudes don’t socialize? Perhaps, but they do work, commute, attend schools, shop, and otherwise interact. And, of course, the big push came as travelers returned in early March and spread throughout the nation.

    Sweden’s route may eventually prove successful, but for now they still have the 8th highest death rate in the world surpassed only by those European countries hardest hit early on. For a while, they were not counting the nursing home fatalities. They may be now, I don’t know.

    Economies recover, dead people don’t. So it is important to balance priorities with how the pandemic is handled.

    One thing is for sure, a vaccine is paramount.

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    1. Well, a vaccine may come faster than earlier predicted too.

      Usually, a vaccine doesn’t go into production until it has passed a all three phases of testing. But under Operation Warp Speed, the three most likely to pass the third trial will go into production while the last trial is in progress so they will be ready as soon as they pass.

      That may mean throwing away a lot of money on vaccines that don’t pass the trials, but it could also mean a vaccine in distribution in September instead of next summer.

      Amazing what can be done when someone makes the FDA get out of the way.

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      1. I know you hate the FDA, but most of the vaccine R&D and production is not in the US.

        What we did do was to contract for 300 million doses of the vaccine that is being tested so that if it works, we can have enough ramped up to start vaccinations in the fall.

        One of the contracts is with AstraZeneca/Oxford University. I think we also contracted with India to make it.

        What I have said in the past is that vaccine production is not very profitable, until now of course. Much better to sell drugs for chronic diseases rather than one shot cures.

        And this is true not just in the US, but in the world of Big Pharma, most of which are not American companies.

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