I’m very disheartened and would love some information to lift my spirits. I have a chronic illness that makes me very vulnerable to a negative outcome if I contract COVID, and my area is very anti public health measures. On top of that, my condition is rare and my physician (and other experts in the field) recommend me waiting to get a vaccine until more data is available on conditions similar to mine. I have been housebound since March of last year. I miss my family so much, especially my grandchildren. Is it ever going to be safe for me to at least hug my grandchildren again and have them spend the night at my house? When might that happen? The loneliness is becoming excruciating. Thank you for any information you can provide. And thank you for all you do.
Doesn’t this all hinge on the vaccines reducing transmission which we don’t know yet? I don’t see why we are even talking heard immunity in this way if the vaccine could only reduce symptoms and death rather than person to person transmission. That is the 5 trillion dollar question at this point.
What if life never returns to the way that it used to be? What if the pandemic will be worse? What if the pandemic will last forever? What if we all become an endangered species of this as humans? Or is that too irrational to think? I have had these anticipations for many months! I’m scared that life will never be the same again! Is that really true? Or am I just being overly fearful? I’m an anxious person, and sometimes grumpy. Will this virus be an endless pandemic? Will we have billions of deaths?
Historically, all pandemics end. Usually within five years at most. The end of the pandemic does not means the disease will disappear entirely, but it means the infection rate will drop substantially below pandemic levels (becoming an epidemic rather than a pandemic). It's a really good bet that we'll return to some semblance of normalcy within five years. We just don't know exactly when or exactly how bad a risk the post-pandemic levels of this virus will continue to be.
But there is some preliminary research suggesting we may be able to create a vaccine (eventually) that would protect against *all* coronaviruses (even the common cold versions) by targeting points of commonality among all known coronaviruses. That could put an end to the arms race between new vaccine development and new viral mutations. It may be a while, but real safety is still possible in the future.
I 100% agree with you Gayle. I would add a third possibility here... that the virus will mutate into the common cold with vaccine pressure.
Ben- The virus' goal is to survive. Its goal is not to kill. So many scientists are hopeful that this virus will eventually mutate into the common cold so it can survive against a lot of our human interventions.
Your fears are not rational. Viruses have a course & go away. Life is too short—find joy in what you love. Turn off news. Don’t read fear-mongering stuff. Trust YLE—which is medically sound. This too shall pass.
These calculations assume no overlap between groups (particularly the cohort of those with natural immunity and the combined cohorts of those with 1 or 2 shots in arms). Is there a thought to estimating overlap between those with natural immunity who have been vaccinated and how that affects gap to herd immunity? Or is it not a useful exercise?
yeah that’s a really good point. i don’t know how much overlap we have (and if we will ever know). since we are targeting older adults right now, i would think there’s not too much overlap. there probably is among healthcare workers. i’m going to now go and try and find if anyone’s attempted figuring this out
Agreed, I was wondering the exact same thing, and came to ask the same question. How can we account for this overlap between groups in our calculations. I presume it is a fairly large overlap that will continue to grow.
Am I wrong in assuming that if everything follows the current path, and assumes no variants get in the way, this model would land us in the middle of July for 70%?
What are your thoughts with cases going down suddenly at rapid rates? Is that due to vaccinations and natural herd immunity or do you think there’s some political aspects to it?
Yeah this is a good question. I don't think we give enough credit to the impact of human behavior (i.e. holidays) on transmission. I truly think that because everyone is done celebrating the holidays, the cases just dropped incredibly quickly. Transmission just stopped. This doesn't have to do with politics- we changed nothing about reporting. Even if we wanted to change reporting, we couldn't do it that quickly. We have an incredibly fragmented and uncoordinated system. We will see a big surge here in March too, which would then debunk this political stance.
I don't know about other areas of the country (haven't looked at the data) but here in the MA, I was trying to look at snow events and how that may have impacted access to testing sites since alot of our testing is done at Stop the Spread sites, oftentimes with outdoor lines. Between snow and cold snap, it may explain it but again I haven't looked at denominators (ie are we still seeing a consistent rate of tests despite a decline in positives or do we see declines in number tested that correlate with weather.
What are your thoughts on the duration of immunity from the mRNA vaccines based on what we know about them so far? Three months doesn’t seem like very long which is all the CDC has mentioned with regard to duration of immunity. I’m referring to their recommendation that vaccinated individuals don’t need to quarantine after exposure, but only for 3 months after vaccination.
Since a large portion of children can’t get vaccinated, what percentage of the population do they account for? In other words, to reach 70%, we would have to remove those unable to get vaccinated from the table...what does that leave us with?
The FB debacle must have been upsetting. However, I'm loving your new format, coming straight to my email. Thanks for all you do.
I'm so glad to hear this, because I'm liking it better too
I fear that, because of the hassles in finding vaccines and actually getting shot(s), people will give up and remain unvaccinated.
yes. we NEED to make it as easy as possible
I’m very disheartened and would love some information to lift my spirits. I have a chronic illness that makes me very vulnerable to a negative outcome if I contract COVID, and my area is very anti public health measures. On top of that, my condition is rare and my physician (and other experts in the field) recommend me waiting to get a vaccine until more data is available on conditions similar to mine. I have been housebound since March of last year. I miss my family so much, especially my grandchildren. Is it ever going to be safe for me to at least hug my grandchildren again and have them spend the night at my house? When might that happen? The loneliness is becoming excruciating. Thank you for any information you can provide. And thank you for all you do.
Doesn’t this all hinge on the vaccines reducing transmission which we don’t know yet? I don’t see why we are even talking heard immunity in this way if the vaccine could only reduce symptoms and death rather than person to person transmission. That is the 5 trillion dollar question at this point.
What if life never returns to the way that it used to be? What if the pandemic will be worse? What if the pandemic will last forever? What if we all become an endangered species of this as humans? Or is that too irrational to think? I have had these anticipations for many months! I’m scared that life will never be the same again! Is that really true? Or am I just being overly fearful? I’m an anxious person, and sometimes grumpy. Will this virus be an endless pandemic? Will we have billions of deaths?
Historically, all pandemics end. Usually within five years at most. The end of the pandemic does not means the disease will disappear entirely, but it means the infection rate will drop substantially below pandemic levels (becoming an epidemic rather than a pandemic). It's a really good bet that we'll return to some semblance of normalcy within five years. We just don't know exactly when or exactly how bad a risk the post-pandemic levels of this virus will continue to be.
But there is some preliminary research suggesting we may be able to create a vaccine (eventually) that would protect against *all* coronaviruses (even the common cold versions) by targeting points of commonality among all known coronaviruses. That could put an end to the arms race between new vaccine development and new viral mutations. It may be a while, but real safety is still possible in the future.
I 100% agree with you Gayle. I would add a third possibility here... that the virus will mutate into the common cold with vaccine pressure.
Ben- The virus' goal is to survive. Its goal is not to kill. So many scientists are hopeful that this virus will eventually mutate into the common cold so it can survive against a lot of our human interventions.
Your fears are not rational. Viruses have a course & go away. Life is too short—find joy in what you love. Turn off news. Don’t read fear-mongering stuff. Trust YLE—which is medically sound. This too shall pass.
Then Mother Earth will heal, and possibly there will be enough left over to re-overpopulate and start the cycle of destroying her all over again.
These calculations assume no overlap between groups (particularly the cohort of those with natural immunity and the combined cohorts of those with 1 or 2 shots in arms). Is there a thought to estimating overlap between those with natural immunity who have been vaccinated and how that affects gap to herd immunity? Or is it not a useful exercise?
yeah that’s a really good point. i don’t know how much overlap we have (and if we will ever know). since we are targeting older adults right now, i would think there’s not too much overlap. there probably is among healthcare workers. i’m going to now go and try and find if anyone’s attempted figuring this out
Agreed, I was wondering the exact same thing, and came to ask the same question. How can we account for this overlap between groups in our calculations. I presume it is a fairly large overlap that will continue to grow.
Is there any reliable data about vaccinated persons being able to infect others?
It’s inconclusive now—too early to tell.
Am I wrong in assuming that if everything follows the current path, and assumes no variants get in the way, this model would land us in the middle of July for 70%?
nope you're not wrong. we (or at least I) am hopeful for August
August doesn't work for me. Can we make it late June? (j/k)
What are your thoughts with cases going down suddenly at rapid rates? Is that due to vaccinations and natural herd immunity or do you think there’s some political aspects to it?
Yeah this is a good question. I don't think we give enough credit to the impact of human behavior (i.e. holidays) on transmission. I truly think that because everyone is done celebrating the holidays, the cases just dropped incredibly quickly. Transmission just stopped. This doesn't have to do with politics- we changed nothing about reporting. Even if we wanted to change reporting, we couldn't do it that quickly. We have an incredibly fragmented and uncoordinated system. We will see a big surge here in March too, which would then debunk this political stance.
Here meaning Texas or nationwide? Spring break as a driver?
I appreciate your response!
I don't know about other areas of the country (haven't looked at the data) but here in the MA, I was trying to look at snow events and how that may have impacted access to testing sites since alot of our testing is done at Stop the Spread sites, oftentimes with outdoor lines. Between snow and cold snap, it may explain it but again I haven't looked at denominators (ie are we still seeing a consistent rate of tests despite a decline in positives or do we see declines in number tested that correlate with weather.
I loved how you broke up your posts into bite size info before. It helps
Dr Marty Makary of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health recently wrote an article saying we will have heard immunity by April (https://www.wsj.com/articles/well-have-herd-immunity-by-april-11613669731). What are your thoughts on this? IS this realistic?
What are your thoughts on the duration of immunity from the mRNA vaccines based on what we know about them so far? Three months doesn’t seem like very long which is all the CDC has mentioned with regard to duration of immunity. I’m referring to their recommendation that vaccinated individuals don’t need to quarantine after exposure, but only for 3 months after vaccination.
Since a large portion of children can’t get vaccinated, what percentage of the population do they account for? In other words, to reach 70%, we would have to remove those unable to get vaccinated from the table...what does that leave us with?