A response to @chron: Why you should believe in Herd Immunity!
6 years ago in #health by theaustrianguy (72)
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The anti-vaxxers are a plague on Steemit and make the entire platform look screwy. Your post is the first one I've seen taking on that craziness and I applaud you for it! I am also glad to see that you are getting a decent reward from this one.
Thank you for the kind words ;)
Hopefully "neutral" people will see the discussions and make a right choice afterwards!
Thank you for showing me the errors which I have made in the last post 😀
I have been silly and feel as if I have let some of my followers down by first, being downvoted by Bernie, second, by making actual factual mistakes in my post, thank you for not slandering me and saying I'm full of shit in this post :)
I will have to aplogize on me and Jockey's behalf on the factual mistake and will edit that immediately (even linking to your post).
I am open to critcism always and will correct my mistakes if I see fit, I agree with what you have said.
ALSO, I would like to point out that I'm not an anti-vaxxer who will feel self righteous and not correct my mistake, I do not want anyone on Steemit thinking anti-vaxxers are barbaric by any means.
In my island of Bali many of the tourists came originally for a week, but end up staying for years, making visa runs to neighboring asian countries so it may be more feasible here.
Thank you again for your correction and do keep your children away from me, I'm flattered 🙏
Glad you accepted your errors and that you even linked to this post 👍
At least most of them probably are not. I believe most of them are just doing what they think is the best for their and their kids health. However that still doesn't mean they are right.
Who I really have no respect for however, are those, who will just say everything is corrupt and don't even consider thinking about any serious scienctific studies. Some are just ignorant people who are pretty much against everything. Some even are probably just anti-vaxx because it is cool in certain communities and they get popular by shouting loud against the corrup pharma industry.
You seem to be a young guy who wants to learn - this is great keep it up. Google selection bias and really think about that concept. It's one of the biggest problems when dealing with the tons of information the internet offers to everybody - If you are not careful, you will find followers and others for every shitty idea you can even imagine.
I don't have numbers - But i doubt that so many people don't travel back home, that it effects the effect in any significant way.
While you clearly show you aren't too proud to admit mistakes with this comment, your math was correct to begin with.
All 7.4M tourists impact herd immunity, and aren't part of the herd, so cannot be added to the calculation as @theaustrianguy has done. You are too humble, and unsure of yourself, apparently.
Any disease tourists brought with them, even if they only came overnight, could be communicated to the herd. All 7.4M of them do impact herd immunity, as you originally calculated.
None of them are checked for vaccinations, so none of them can be considered to contribute to herd immunity, and this is why they cannot be added to the population of the Australian herd.
Not being a scientist, it is easy to accept declarations from them that claim to be. This is a danger, and I hope you learn from this not to accept reliance on authority to override your own understanding.
You need to retract your retraction, cuz you were right the first time.
Of course it could be communicated to the herd. But herd immunity - at least in the most common understanding - is not about how likely a disease is brought to the herd. It is about how fast and how good a disease can spread in a herd once somebody from the herd has the disease.
There are also unvaccinated people within the herd. So why should not being check for vaccination automaticly put you out of the herd?
Either you are there at the time the disease is trying to spread --> you are part of the relevant herd, or you are not there --> you are not part of the relevant herd.
The concept doesn't care about who you are and where you are from. It only cares about how many of the indivduals being there are at that time are immune and how many are not.
One critical factor to herd immunity is that of vector. Immunized herd members are reckoned unable to transmit the disease. Therefore, adding a substantial attack vector of potentially infected persons to the 'edge' of the herd, as happens with tourists, directly impacts herd immunity negatively.
Granted. I was incorrect. Thanks for pointing it out.
This is why the tourists aren't part of the herd. Since they are only temporarily present, they do not contribute - other than as potential vectors of infection of the herd - to epidemic.
Thanks for your substantive reply!
Having worked in clinical bioinformatics, I feel these issues get muddied by the assumption that the "science is sound" - if people could see, what I've seen, at research institutions, they would be far more skeptical of ALL the numbers being used to justify arguments in this and other debates. Bottom line: people need to judge for themselves the soundness of the data, do proper research, and keep asking questions. I do not get vaccinated for the flu - haven't had the flu in almost 20 years. This is anecdotal, and therefore NOT scientific evidence, but it is my own experience. Thanks for this post, I really like the discussion here.
Excellent points all around. Anecdotal evidence drives so any health trends and habits among individuals. It will be quite interesting to see how the world utilizes the ever increasing collection of data we are accumulating, especially for health of individuals and society in general.
Definitely true. This is why you have to find trustful sources who are known for good scientific behavior and you also should look out for different results which prove your assumption.
And if you think you don't need the flu vaxx, don't get it. That's your right of course.
I only would disagree if you would say: "Hey guys, don't get the vaxx, you don't need it. Just look at me. I am not vaxxed and still haven't got the flu!"
But as long as you don't use your individual case as proof for something, I agree that you can handle getting the flu shot or not just as you like or think what is best for you.
You're assuming that once someone is vaccinated they have immunity to that particular pathogen, but that immunity decreases with time. You can have 100% of a population vaccinated, but half of them were vaccinated so long ago they no longer have immunity...hence only 50% coverage...hence there'd be no 'herd immunity' (a dubious concept). For example all those vaccinated with Varicella in the last 10 years, how many are still immune? Exactly... that's why they are talking about booster shots.
Where exactly do I say that?
Really?
Probably a lot more than you think.
"In Japanese studies, 97% of children had antibody 7 to 10 years after vaccination."
"Immunity appears to be long-lasting, and is probably permanent in the majority of vaccinees."
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/varicella.pdf
I've read both his post and this one and feel that it's possible he's made another mistake in his interpretation of herd immunity. Herd immunity should not count the interlopers (tourists) regardless of their percentage. Herd immunity deals with the percentage of a fairly stable group that need to be immuno-competant, such as from a vaccine, previous exposure, etc..., so that an exposure to a pathogen does not gain a foothold. So if this is in the 80%, it is never meant to convey that no one in the "herd" will get sick. Obviously, if one of the 20% on non immuno- competent , they are at risk of getting infected. So herd immunity is not a zero illness issue. It is instead, a statistical issue where if there is exposure, it doesn't sweep through the "herd" or population, because even if one person is exposed, whether from a tourist or a bat, the people who interact and surround that person will not get sick and thus participate in the stifling of the infection. Variables that will change the ultimate exposure and thus illness include how far and often a sick person travels within a "herd" but at a certain number (such as the 83-94% presented) the infection will become self limiting. This herd immunity is a barrier whether there are 1 or 1 million tourists or 1 or 1 million bats that might expose the "herd" to infection. Lower numbers of immune individuals will allow for a more rapid and devastating spread through the population because more sick individuals represent an increased risk that they will expose other vulnerable victims. Herd immunity really has nothing specific to do with vaccinations, other than this is a way we can affect herd immunity. Immunity levels in a population from other causes, such as sublethal exposure will result in the same protection of it's immune naive members through statistics... The disease causing agent is simply less likely to come in contact with vulnerable people if it is surrounded by people who can't continue the transfer.
100% agreed here
Another 100% agreement here!
I didn't want to argue about something we can't prove as easily when I just could show him that even with counting tourists as well, it would work.
Showing a clear logic mistake seemed easier than debatting over another thing to me.
Tourists act as herd members for the purpose of calculating numbers of potential disease vectors, but as they do not stay and get vaccinated, they do not increase the size of the herd.
This makes their impact far larger than if they were members of the herd, as they increase the vector surface as if they were members of the herd, but do not increase the size of the herd for the herd immunity calculation.
They can drop off their diseases and leave.
Again, it doesn't matter if you are vaccinated or not. It also doesn't matter where you are from. If you are there, you are part of the herd for that time. The disease doesn't care who you are. It only cares if you are immune or not.
If you are there and you are not immune, you can spread the disease.
If you are there and you are immune, you won't spread it and possibly act as a wall to protect others.
Your origin doesn't come into play here.
It isn't the origin alone of the tourists that matters (although it is of critical import that they are potential sources of non-native virulence), it is their impermanence. All of them are potential attack vectors for disease. Each of them might communicate a disease to immunocompromised herd members, instituting epidemic, and then leave, no longer contributing to the herd - except as a vector.
Since epidemic isn't simply an event that happens at an instant, it isn't the total number of tourists who are present at any one time that is the number of attack vectors weakening the herd that is relevant, but rather the total number of tourists that impact the herd that count for that purpose.
Were the tourists to stay for long periods of time, the rate of immunocompetence of the tourists would impact the development of epidemic. Since they do not, it is the increase in attack vectors alone that comprises their impact on herd immunity.
In the event of epidemic, only those tourists present at the time, a calculation impossible to make absent more information, or blind estimations, would be included in the herd.
I concede this does modify my original statement.
Thanks!
You have just got the new follower for this text. There are some things people don't understand. 1 - only people who survived can write posts, 2 - your story is statistically irrelevant because you have the sample size = 1, 3 - biology is the science, as any other science, it is necessary to spend years of studying if you want to uderstand it. And for the end, simply do the math as I did and you will find that it is absolutely normal and expected to see thousands of pages with fascinating anectotes about the vaccines. Some simple math: https://steemit.com/health/@alexs1320/mathematics-of-vaccination
Glad you like it and great post yourself ;)
Man I have nothing but respect for how you handled this, I have zero patience with people who put others at risk by not getting vaccinated.
I think that being impatient won't help and rather pushes those who don't vaxx into a corner - and even further away from seeing the sense of vaxxing. It's too late for some of them - But most of them just believe it's better to not do so for their health because they don't know better. Those are the ones we need to save.
I agree, it is important to be patient with these people but it's hard to do that in the face of ignorance
My oldest son has had more vaccines than i did when i was little, my youngest son was supposed to get even more vaccinations.
I just wiped every non deadly disease and easy-to-proof non working vaccines of the list and rubbed the poor fella in every sick persons face. He is 2,5 now, he threw up once in his life and got high fever (40C and up) a couple of times with some little red spots. But never anything i would take him to a doctor for.
Funny to notice that the list of vaccines he did get was almost identical as the vaccines i got when i was little.
Putting people at risk when not vaccinating yourself sounds weird, you could choose to be vaccinated yourself, and then you are immune. No matter how many people around you are unvaccinated. To immunize a complete population to reduce the risk for a incredible small percentage of people is the same as we all stop driving cars to eliminate the victims of car crashes.
It's your decision -But definitely not a smart one. Fevers in the are of 40°Celsius and up are not a little fever. Not going there with ever rise up t0 38.5 is perfectly fine. But 40 is a different league...
You don't get it, or you don't want to get it - herd immunity is not for the ones who can protect themselves, but for the ones who can't...
Expect the fact that our world can still function with vaccines but not without cars....
Baby's get to 40C all the time, i took the oldest one (he got all vaccins) to the doctor in a panic first time it happened, because all i knew was >40C is dangerous.
The doctor told me it was nothing and as long as they are conscious baby's can get to 40C fever for a couple of hours no problem he told me (looked it up because i never trust no one and it seemed he was right).
I do not like reasoning based on emotions, it gets muddy easily, see; I care a lot more about my own children than i do about random other people. For instance i would rather have half of the world die out than one of my children to die, most people won't admit to it because it sounds so selfish but that is how all parents will feel about it.
So how much chance is there i am doing harm to my baby by being vaccinated too much and how much chance is there someone will die because of him not being vaccinated.
And if i have these numbers how much would i value the live of my kids more than i would value the live of someone else.
It would be very hard to put numbers on that.
So i decided to take the middle way, be sure to not take more vaccine shots than needed. Do not spread deadly diseases when they can be easily prevented without causing any other harm.
The world could function with less cars, but there is also some undetermined maximum of vaccine shots a human can take, so in theory there is a maximum on the amount of vaccines the world can function with.
I dont know whos your doctor but 41°C all enzymes start denturation process and you are at high risk developing complication or dying.
Sounds like a reasonable approach to vaccination to me.
It is preposterous to vaccinate newborns for Hep B. They aren't at risk from the disease, and there is a risk of vaccine related injury.
It is medical practices like this that cast all vaccination in bad light.
Thank you so much for posting this!
Thanks for reading it ;)
It's interesting to see this discussion. I would ask you both to consider the effect (on the 83 - 94% target figure for herd immunity) of low to zero efficacy vaccines....a much more obvious and serious threat to the playful notion of "herd immunity." Consider how many vaccines require "boosters" because they don't work very well or for very long. Consider how many in the adult population are not in fact "covered." I say playful notion to describe "herd immunity" because I have not been able to find a study of any quality which proves herd immunity has ever existed or is possible to attain. If you can point me in the direction of one, that would be fantastic and I would greatly appreciate it.
Let's be perfectly clear about one thing. Medical interventions against the will of those having it forced upon them....especially and unquestionably in the case of morally and criminally conflicted big pharma products....is a morally bankrupt offence against humanity and outright fascism.
She died. After 24 hours of further suffering that i watched!
https://steemit.com/life/@surpassinggoogle/i-wish-it-was-a-dream-10-pm-manila-time-my-precious-loving-mum-lost-life-she-fought-hard-fix-me-this-is-not-nsfw-it-s-life-and
Terry, I'm so sorry. I wish I could help.
On August 24th my own mother died, and I cannot express my own grief. I can only offer you my deepest empathy.
Be the man she would want you to be. Be proud of her for caring for you as she did. You are her son, whom she loved. Take care of her beloved son, as she would want you to, my friend.
You said exactly everything. Sorry about your loss. We will see them again in paradise.. I believe. Stay awesome.
I am sorry for your loss - I know what it means to loose loved ones! But just like you I hope we will see them again in a different place one day!
It's indeed a problem that many adults don't care about their boosters.
But many vaccinations do still work for some people even if you haven't got the booster. Its quite individual how long something works.
Unfortunately I don't have one in sight now, but I will look into more detail later.
Thank you for responding. The focus should not be on adults not "caring" to get boosters but on the efficacy of the vaccines in question and how that relates to the idea of herd immunity. Adult cover is almost certainly below the stated targets of coverage for most vaccines. Herd immunity is a logically flawed concept. It is highly effective propaganda that does not stand up to even the most casual scrutiny. The "science" around vaccination does not exist......the majority of the vaccine industry today is a fraud that has killed and maimed millions for the sake of power and profit. It's just about the saddest and most grotesque betrayal of our children I am aware of or can imagine.....up there with exposing them to war.
I disagree. Since both factors might be a problem, both should be focused on. No need to only go in one direction.
Do you have statistics here?
You are not able to find sience about vaccines? Go to pubmed.com and type in vaccines - You might find some ;)
I can't even express how disrespectful this is to all children who have died from preventable diseases and their parents.
We live ( I assume you too) in western countries, where, mainly due to high hygenic standards and modern medicine, the death rate for kids is way lower than in Africa f.e.. And other than appreciating it, you tell us what a crime we are doing against our kids. Meanwhile kids in Africa die from preventable disease.
This is just pathetic.
Honestly, do you have even the first clue about how this world actually works? Can you explain to me why Africa doesn't have the hygiene and nutrition that would far better protect their people from disease than all the toxic vaccines in the world? I'll tell you, it's because their continent has been raped by imperialism and colonialism for decades.
Your obtuse disregard for all those African children who have been killed and maimed by vaccine is sadly to be expected from someone still living in the matrix.
The idea of preventing disease is of course a good one. But endless vaccine experiments run by conflicted, untrustworthy, unaccountable, profit seeking monopolies on populations of fearful, ignorant, damaged and often non-compliant populations is obviously not the best way to fight disease. It's the way they do it because it suits them.
Sometimes vaccines may, in some people, reduce the incidence of a particular disease, but cause so much other damage to the individual that they are more likely to die from something else. Sometimes the vaccine injuries are worse than the disease the vaccine was supposed to protect the individual from.
Out of your "saved" African kids. How many develop horrendous side effects from the vaccines given to them? How many develop hidden issues that made them more susceptible to cancer or other infections?
I don't believe it is pathetic to acknowledge the truth of a situation, to acknowledge that a million different things could be done better if the true goal is to help people. I don't think it's pathetic to have a desire to try to do something about it, to try to save all the children from disease, including all those killed or harmed by vaccines.
Can't argue with this. But I also don't want to. The sad fact you stated here doesn't have anything to do with the fact that vaccines are most often able to protect us from various diseases.
Sometimes seatbelts kill people who would otherwise not have died during that accident. Do you think seatbelts are useless?
True, there are many many things which can be done better around the whole world.
And yes, better science about vaccines and stricter rules on how to test them should be included as well.
But just saying ,vaccines are bad and in general do more harm than good, is pathetic.
But I am glad that we at least have something in common:
I am totally with you that there is a lot of improvement in these areas and that nobody should be forced to be a testperson for anything.
Good hygiene and nutrition are the primary bulwark against any disease. The sad truth is that Africa has large populations in abject poverty, and that have access to neither.
I would far prefer to be availed of proper hygiene and good food and unvaccinated than the reverse, and not only because I'd be more comfortable, but for the vastly improved ability to respond to disease and heal.
Good hygenie and nutrition are of course important and I would prefer them over just having vaccines as well.
However it is not just hygenie which is accountable for the drop in case reports for many disease. Look up my latest post for more detail here.
Your seatbelt analogy is flawed. Car manufacturers are held to account for safety failures far more rigorously than pharmaceutical companies (who in fact have ZERO accountability.)
Big pharma has virtually no imperative to improve the safety and efficacy of vaccines.....in fact without push back from their victims.....they are incentivised to produce as many bad vaccines as possible.
Then they can sell vaccines with cheaper ingredients and cheaper manufacturing costs, "boosters" (multiple hits of the same failed vaccine) and other drugs that deal with the laundry list of side-effects. Why not make a cancer patient out of an individual's fear of hep C? Great.
You are an aspiring doctor and I would like to believe we are in the same page. We both want to help people. Thank you sincerely for the discussion, I hope we have others. All the best.
Why is my analogy flawed? It is not always about accountability.
In situations with bad luck, a proper designed and well used seatbelt can kill - That's a fact.
I will still use a seatbelt all the time since I am convinced it will much rather save than kill me.
I know that there are many black sheep in the pharma industry - just like there are whereever money is in play.
However you don't really thing that all scientist just do their work for money? Do you think all people working in those areas just care for money?
We can agree on the fact that we should get rid of the people who are there just for the money. But it's unfair to say that all people working there are just doing it for the money. And luckily, that's not the case!
Incidentally, the title of your post contains "why you should believe in herd immunity." Can you please at least acknowledge that you have absolutely no evidence that herd immunity could reasonably work. Could you please acknowledge that, as i've pointed out, the likelihood that any populations anywhere in the world have ever reached anywhere near the vaccine coverage range that is said to achieve herd immunity is logically extremely low. You might retract your statement at least until such time as you have evidence to support the claim, especially when calling out @chron so articulately :)
I will reply in more detail since I am in a train now and don't have much time...
True, it contains the word believe. Believe, not prove. Otherwise it would be "The facts why herd immunity works!"
This post was never made to prove anything.
It was mainly made to show @chron and the many users who agreed with him, that their argument of "tourism makes herd immunity not working" was based on a big logical error and I wanted to correct that.
You were absolutely right to point out the logical flaws in @chron's post. But your arguments for why people should believe in herd immunity were also flawed. That's why I question the title....because you are asking people to believe in herd immunity, which sadly and provably, does not exist.
Actually, @theaustrianguy was incorrect, and @chron was correct.
Every one of the tourists is an unknown regarding vaccination, and therefore needs to be counted as unvaccinated for the purpose of calculating herd immunity.
Every one of them could have dropped off a disease upon their visit, so they were all potential vectors, that decreased the immunity of the herd in direct proportion to their numbers.
However, they aren't members of the herd at all, they don't stay. Their number cannot be added to the herd.
Their impact compromises the immunity of the herd, but their transitory nature means they cannot be considered a part of the herd.
@chron was correct from the get go, and the good doctor wrong.
I would like to add a question to this. I was fully vaccinated, and I was living in Germany at the time. Only recently I found my old vaccination card and discovered to my surprise that I was even vaccinated for chicken pox (something they didn't start elsewhere till much later). Now, I never had the chicken pox. But my sister did (even fully vaccinated) as well as mumps. I however, got measles, even if I was fully vaccinated. Now, most would argue that both me and my sister would have had those illnesses to a lesser extend because of the vaccinations. BUT, in our cases, would we not be able to infect others (for instance young babies etc.) who aren't vaccinated (yet) and does this not blow the theory of herd immunity out of the water completely?
Individual cases (almost) never blow a theory.
And yes, vaccines don't work in 100% of the times. But herd immunisation doesnt require 100% as we have learned before.
As you might have seen I am fully answering to all of your questions as good as I can. However I wasn't there and therefore I can't say too much about you and your sister.
Of course, the example I gave you are individual cases and I understand what you are saying. However, if these kind of incidents happen twice in one family, I believe it is quite easy to assume that our cases are NOT singular cases since the same family had three of the diseases we were supposed to be immune against (or at least vaccinated for). I believe we can assume that this happens more than we think...
Did you get the required boosters or did you ever check a titer level?
But of course it also could be that, for a genetic reason maybe, vaccinations worke worse for members of your family.
I believe this depends on what numbers we are thinking about ;)
Yeah, I had all the boosters. My parents always did everything they were told to do, even if it killed them (not the vaccine, but it was a doctors advice or negligence, whichever comes first that killed my mother). And the numbers, well I don't know. Our family had three children. Two out of three, probably 3 out of 3 (my brother got mumps too) with one child having two illnesses she was vaccinated against...What do you think? Our family was definitely not alone, I know lots of people who still got childhood illnesses even if they were vaccinated. So even though I can't come with an exact number, I think the number is much higher than we think. Especially seen the fact that a lot of people either don't remember having the illness as a child or (like me) don't know till later that they had vaccines for those illnesses.
Something you might consider, unrelated to the vaccine safety issue, is that your family might be genetically more susceptible to those diseases, so even with vaccination, your immune systems weren't able to prevent infection.
It's possible that the additional immunity theoretically provided by vaccination saved your lives, by proactively preparing your less effective immune systems against the diseases.
The only answer for having the diseases after being vaccinated for them ISN'T that the vaccines were ineffective.
As @theaustrianguy points out, different people have different genetics, and our immune systems are different as a result.
This is also something, returning to vaccine safety, that makes giving everybody the same vaccine risky. Some people will be harmed by things that others, even everybody else, isn't.
Before very recently, it would have been impossible to differentiate between people whose genetics and immune systems require different medical treatment.
Thankfully, personalized medicine is being developed, and soon, perhaps these risks will be a thing of the past.
I am sorry for your loss :(
As I said, maybe their is something genetic that makes your families members not reacting well to vaccines.
That of course is bad luck - and I understand why you might think that vaccines are not so good if you experienced that bad luck.
But in the game of big numbers, you are just a very very little part. I don't say not important - every human life is. .
Whatever we can do to protect our children and the community is what seems best to me. This is a great discussion to be had. Thank you.
Glad you are following this discussion and can take something from it ;)