Thanks for this. I am a veterinary epidemiologist and have calculated quite a few herd immunity estimates in my day. What makes me throw up my hands for humans is the definition of the "herd". We assume a homogenous distribution of immunity and transmission likelihoods, and farms can often meet that assumption. Heterogeneity due to the plethora of socio-economic factors just drives up the estimate and I don't see how an estimate less than 90% can hold.
I am an old, very retired and only previously and many years ago, certified PA who has practiced no medicine in over two plus decades. I found your site today on my Next Door site and fell in love with it almost instantly, despite having no training in epidemiology at all (well ... I did clinically recognize that having multiple people at a ranger training camp, back in my own heyday , was weird ... right after I had reported to the commander at a staff meeting shortly after that we had to hospitalize that specific student at a local hospital but "it is winter and pneumonia when your students are tired, hungry, and trapped outside, is not that unusual" only to go back and have four more patients waiting for me with the same symptoms). That little venture got me asking the CDC for help and having my hospital commander insist I go down to the Florida ranger camp and follow up on all the guys we treated to try to break the spread with penicillin or erythromycin to prevent the strep. pneumonia that was causing the problem. We succeeded. and most students finished the grueling training.
Anyway, your site has charmed me and maybe I can get some of my military PA's to sign on too. I think I will go to their page and do that RIGHT now. Thank you ma;am.
Thanks for this. I am a veterinary epidemiologist and have calculated quite a few herd immunity estimates in my day. What makes me throw up my hands for humans is the definition of the "herd". We assume a homogenous distribution of immunity and transmission likelihoods, and farms can often meet that assumption. Heterogeneity due to the plethora of socio-economic factors just drives up the estimate and I don't see how an estimate less than 90% can hold.
I am an old, very retired and only previously and many years ago, certified PA who has practiced no medicine in over two plus decades. I found your site today on my Next Door site and fell in love with it almost instantly, despite having no training in epidemiology at all (well ... I did clinically recognize that having multiple people at a ranger training camp, back in my own heyday , was weird ... right after I had reported to the commander at a staff meeting shortly after that we had to hospitalize that specific student at a local hospital but "it is winter and pneumonia when your students are tired, hungry, and trapped outside, is not that unusual" only to go back and have four more patients waiting for me with the same symptoms). That little venture got me asking the CDC for help and having my hospital commander insist I go down to the Florida ranger camp and follow up on all the guys we treated to try to break the spread with penicillin or erythromycin to prevent the strep. pneumonia that was causing the problem. We succeeded. and most students finished the grueling training.
Anyway, your site has charmed me and maybe I can get some of my military PA's to sign on too. I think I will go to their page and do that RIGHT now. Thank you ma;am.