Are Some Countries Seeking Herd Immunity?

[Nimrod103]

Has anyone any official estimated figures for a probable final percentage of the population that will be vaccinated?

A quick google finds this topical Oxford study. (Beware the potential politics trap )

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-02-24-major-rise-public-support-covid-vaccine-oxford-study

"More than three quarters of people in the UK now say they are ’very likely’ to have the vaccine".

If you dig into the survey data itself it's: Very Unlikely 7.8%, Unlikely 4.9%, Likely 10.6%, Very Likely 76.7%. (Excludes people who've already had it.)

Hmmm thanks.

I note there is no option for the "Hell will freeze over before I consent to being vaccinated" point of view.

I personally know someone with the "Nobody tells me what to do so I won't be caving in to government instructions to get vaccinated" kind of bolshy, anti-authoritarian kind of attitude. Odd really because they are quite a left wing, socially aware, community-minded, hippy type of person otherwise.

Quite a few of the lefty-hippy types seem to think this way it seems, which I find quite perplexing.

Is this not a reflection of how dangerous/fatal they think this disease is likely to be for them personally? It is a problem with younger age groups - they think they will live for ever.

This will in time be countered by the concept that (1) that attitude is selfish (campaign led by the Queen no less), (2) as time passes the vaccines will be more obviously safe, and (3) the vaccine passport for internal and international use. People who refuse the vaccine will change their tune when they find they cannot travel, may be barred from certain jobs, and perhaps cannot enter certain venues.

An interesting aspect is whether the vaccine is eventually rolled out for under 18 year olds. No reason why not.

[swill453]

An interesting aspect is whether the vaccine is eventually rolled out for under 18 year olds. No reason why not.

I expect it will, once it's been tested on them, and licensed for that use.

Scott.

[Arborbridge]

There are only two ways out of this pandemic: complete eradication or herd immunity. Complete eradication would have to be worldwide unless we closed our borders. I think that complete eradication would be incredibly difficult unless a level of herd immunity is achieved first.


Julian F. G. W.

So when Professor Devi Sridhar, Chair of Global Public Health and an adviser to the Scottish government, says that we should be aiming at complete eradication in the UK (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/arti ... tmare.html), is she being realistic? There is every likelihood that because children won't be vaccinated and there is a very low uptake in ethnic minorities, probably only c.70% of Britons will be vaccinated, which is probably not enough to reach herd immunity.
So I assume Sridhar wants a permanent lockdown, and sealed borders to achieve eradication?

Your assumption does not proceed from the desire to completely eradicate a disease: e.i. the desire itself does not show that she wants the outcomes you've "assumed".

[Gersemi]

An interesting aspect is whether the vaccine is eventually rolled out for under 18 year olds. No reason why not.

I expect it will, once it's been tested on them, and licensed for that use.

Scott.

Yes, testing on children is underway:

https://www.nihr.ac.uk/news/first-child ... open/26870

[Lanark]

Is this not a reflection of how dangerous/fatal they think this disease is likely to be for them personally?

I think there is a strong correlation between age and willingness to have the vaccine, a reflection of the thatcherite "me me me" attitude which is still prevalent.
If we have un-vaccinated people allowed to travel off to countries where covid is still present then we can expect this to drag on for years if not decades.

[dealtn]

Is this not a reflection of how dangerous/fatal they think this disease is likely to be for them personally?

I think there is a strong correlation between age and willingness to have the vaccine, a reflection of the thatcherite "me me me" attitude which is still prevalent.
If we have un-vaccinated people allowed to travel off to countries where covid is still present then we can expect this to drag on for years if not decades.

What has the strong correlation surrounding age got to do with Thatcher (dead for nearly 8 years and last in power over 30 years ago)?

[XFool]

There is every likelihood that because children won't be vaccinated and there is a very low uptake in ethnic minorities, probably only c.70% of Britons will be vaccinated, which is probably not enough to reach herd immunity.

Is it really as high as 70%?

Has anyone any official estimated figures for a probable final percentage of the population that will be vaccinated?

My own estimate is 50% of the population, given 20% of the population is under 18

Have we not already heard that that is being looked at? i.e. in future we can expect the under 18s will be vaccinated.

[XFool]

I personally know someone with the "Nobody tells me what to do so I won't be caving in to government instructions to get vaccinated" kind of bolshy, anti-authoritarian kind of attitude. Odd really because they are quite a left wing, socially aware, community-minded, hippy type of person otherwise.

Quite a few of the lefty-hippy types seem to think this way it seems, which I find quite perplexing.

It's not really that strange when you take a moment to consider the extreme haste in producing these vaccines, the corners cut, and the urging of incompetent government to roll them out.

So what corners have been cut? Do you have anything beyond personal opinion?

I imagine most realise that, in a pandemic, it's of little use waiting 5 - 10 years for a vaccine.

You've heard of Thalidomide presumably?

Yeah. A drug, not a vaccine, originally marketed in the 1950s. So?

[GoSeigen]

I personally know someone with the "Nobody tells me what to do so I won't be caving in to government instructions to get vaccinated" kind of bolshy, anti-authoritarian kind of attitude. Odd really because they are quite a left wing, socially aware, community-minded, hippy type of person otherwise.

Quite a few of the lefty-hippy types seem to think this way it seems, which I find quite perplexing.

It's not really that strange when you take a moment to consider the extreme haste in producing these vaccines, the corners cut, and the urging of incompetent government to roll them out.

So what corners have been cut?

None, right? Drug companies simply found a way to speed up time, to compress five years into one...

I imagine most [wealthy people] realise that, in a pandemic, it's of little use waiting 5 - 10 years for a vaccine.

That's entitlement, 2020s-style. The rest of the world will wait patiently.


GS

[tjh290633]

I would add that the other non-pharmaceutical intervention that can in some circumstances help break transmission chains and act as at least a partial proxy for real vaccines is a good test/trace/isolate system.

That was the principle behind leper colonies and isolation hospitals. Leprosy and tuberculosis werwe dealt with locally, villages would expel or banish sufferers, TB sufferers were sent to specialised hospitals.

I just wonder whether allocating certain hospitals for Covid, with full precautions, might have been a better option at the outset. The problem is that period of infectivity before symptoms appear.

TJH

[XFool]

It's not really that strange when you take a moment to consider the extreme haste in producing these vaccines, the corners cut, and the urging of incompetent government to roll them out.

So what corners have been cut?

None, right? Drug companies simply found a way to speed up time, to compress five years into one...

Thanks for confirming there is nothing to see here apart from your prejudices.

I imagine most [wealthy people] realise that, in a pandemic, it's of little use waiting 5 - 10 years for a vaccine.

Ah, so here you "answer" a comment of mine, doctored by your own prejudices. That's a new one.

My original was simply:

I imagine most realise that, in a pandemic, it's of little use waiting 5 - 10 years for a vaccine.

That's entitlement, 2020s-style. The rest of the world will wait patiently.

I can't imagine what the "entitlement" of "wealthy people" has to do with this. The sooner vaccines are available in the world the sooner they can, in principle, be available to everyone. How soon they are made available to poorer countries is an important matter. But unless they ARE available, they won't be available to anyone. BTW, the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine is being made available at cost.

[Julian]

I would add that the other non-pharmaceutical intervention that can in some circumstances help break transmission chains and act as at least a partial proxy for real vaccines is a good test/trace/isolate system.

That was the principle behind leper colonies and isolation hospitals. Leprosy and tuberculosis werwe dealt with locally, villages would expel or banish sufferers, TB sufferers were sent to specialised hospitals.

I just wonder whether allocating certain hospitals for Covid, with full precautions, might have been a better option at the outset. The problem is that period of infectivity before symptoms appear.

TJH

Yes. There will a lot to be learned in hindsight.

The consequence of your Covid-only hospitals is I assume that other hospitals would, at least as far as admissions are concerned, be maintained as zero-Covid hospitals. On that score the USA actually did that back in the first peak in at least one instance. A hospital ship was deployed to New York City (and US hospital ships are impressive 1,000 bed fully equipped hospitals) and at the time, against the backdrop of the UK building Nightingale hospitals that at that time were planned to be pretty much entirely ventilator beds for Covid-19 patients, I remember thinking it was interesting that it was being used strictly for non-Covid patients. It did make a lot of sense to be able to add a big extra Covid-free hospital to carry on other health activities that the other Covid-overwhelmed hospitals could no longer cope with at the time.

And on the subject of NYC when it was really badly hit by the first wave, wasn't its lockdown extremely strict even to the extent of people not being allowed out for exercise so even stricter than the first UK lockdown? Maybe I'm remembering that wrongly but if not I find it quite interesting that, while many still discuss the issues of severity of lockdown wrt cultural norms (acceptance) and authoritarian governments that the USA, supposedly "the land of the free", did in NYC at least do a lock down even more harsh than the UK one as I think did parts of Northern Italy in the early days, again not even allowed out for exercise I seem to remember (again perhaps wrongly).

- Julian

[tjh290633]

And on the subject of NYC when it was really badly hit by the first wave, wasn't its lockdown extremely strict even to the extent of people not being allowed out for exercise so even stricter than the first UK lockdown? Maybe I'm remembering that wrongly but if not I find it quite interesting that, while many still discuss the issues of severity of lockdown wrt cultural norms (acceptance) and authoritarian governments that the USA, supposedly "the land of the free", did in NYC at least do a lock down even more harsh than the UK one as I think did parts of Northern Italy in the early days, again not even allowed out for exercise I seem to remember (again perhaps wrongly).

- Julian

I think that you are correct about NYC, but maybe that is a reflection on apartment living.

TJH