From the R.M. Dolin book “Truth and Trust in Crisis,” 2021
Chapter 12: Herd Immunity
Herd Immunity occurs when a significantly large percentage of a population is exposed to a contagion and the contagion dies out for lack of viable hosts and pathways for transmission.[1] A key premise of herd immunity is that as the percentage of a population that’s infected increases it provides protection for uninfected individuals[2]. As the percentage of immune people within a population grows, the likelihood an uninfected person encounters the contagion reduces, thereby breaking the chain of infections.
Herd immunity promotes viral attenuation[3], or the weakening of a contagion. The curious thing about viruses is they’re not alive but not dead either, what they are is smart enough to realize if they kill or incapacitate their hosts, they cease to be viable. To survive, viruses evolve into a state where they spread more easily but do less damage, which is called attenuation. For example, we’re continually exposed to a variant of the uber deadly Spanish Flu that’s attenuated into a harmless state.
There are two ways to promote herd immunity, one through vaccination and the other through exposure. The world has mostly achieved herd immunity for diseases such as measles through vaccination. It won’t be until 2021 that untested COVID vaccines become available, and they won’t be effective, so the only assured way to achieve herd immunity is through exposure.
The U.S., along with most of the world, has opted not to deploy a herd immunity strategy. Instead, they’ve opted for an inverse-quarantine strategy[4], whereby the healthy population is isolated as a measure to prevent the viral spread. This illogical strategy is ineffective, inefficient, and counter to how nature achieves herd immunity. The inverse-quarantine approach grew out of panic after fantastically fictious federal and academic models predict millions will die from COVID.[5]
Back when mom’ s trusted their instincts over doctor prescriptions, they hosted virus parties to intentionally expose their healthy kids.[6] The thinking was that getting certain viruses is inevitable and the younger a child is when they get chicken pox, mumps or measles, the less severe the long-term effects are. In addition, once a child gets over these ailments, they have immunity for the rest of their life. I attended multiple virus parties and somehow managed to turn out somewhat okay; at least I’m rarely sick.
Deploying an inverse-quarantine strategy while waiting for a vaccine prevents the virus from attenuating as fast as it otherwise would. Herd immunity is achieved when 60% of a population has been infected.[7] When 80% of a population becomes immune to a virus, four out of every five people who encounter someone with the disease won’t get sick and won’t spread the disease any further. In this way, the spread of an infectious disease is kept under control.
With COVID’s Delta and Omicron variants we see the positive impact of herd immunity as each variant becomes successively weaker than its predecessor. If world leaders managed COVID the same way past leaders managed previous pandemics, herd immunity would be achieved while the virus attenuates to a benign state. However, instead of factually reporting that COVID’s attenuating, as evidence suggests, government and media tirelessly attempt to convince us each new variant is an existential threat, when in fact the data from scientific studies and gnomic sequencing indicate exactly the opposite.[8]
Sweden chose to deploy a herd immunity strategy and kept work, schools, restaurants, and bars open while taking precautions like limiting the size of gatherings, shutting down metro systems, and suspending sporting events. Their hospitals have not been overrun with COVID patients, and they reach herd immunity by May.[9] News media reports that Sweden’s COVID death count is higher than its neighbors who adopted inverse-quarantine strategies, however, these reports deceptively fail to adjust for population. When you factor in the size of Sweden, their death rate is actually lower than their neighbors, and lower than the U.S.
Anders Tegnell, who’s in charge of Sweden’s COVID response, admits there have been issues with his country’s execution strategy. Commenting on COVID deaths, which are well below other European countries, he said, “It is not a failure for the overall strategy, but it is a failure to protect our elderly who live in care homes.” He’s suggesting that had Sweden adequately quarantined their at-risk population, which is how quarantines historically work, they would have lowered COVID deaths on their way to achieving herd immunity, something New York bureaucrats should heed.
To achieve global herd immunity, 70% of the world’s population must become infected, either virally or through vaccination. At the end of April, only 0.04% of the population was infected. At the current rate of around 100,000 new cases per day, it takes 15 years to achieve global herd immunity, and since we probably can vaccinate at a faster rate, the path back to normalcy appears to depend on vaccinations.
The global death rate is holding at around 5,000 per day. If there is any good news in that, it’s that the numbers are not trending upward. Currently the global recovery rate is 93%, which is not very good. This estimate though is likely wrong, since the actual number of infected, based on the Stanford study, could be as much as eighty times higher and if true, herd immunity would be reached in 3 years at a recovery rate of 99.86%.
The question at the heart of the vaccine versus natural herd immunity debate is what’s an acceptable COVID death rate? If you say zero, as many politicians pontificate, you’re not being realistic since zero COVID deaths is not achievable. If you suggest 36,000 annual deaths in the U.S. is acceptable, you’re being consistent with the annual level of flu deaths and our society seems okay with that. If you suggest a number higher than 36,000, you run the risk of seeming pathological.
Consider the question in reverse; how many COVID deaths would it take for you to advocate for the imposition of Martial Law? Let’s suppose your town has a population of 70,000 and is isolated from any other urban area. How many dead would have to be lying in the streets before you declared your city lost and ask the government to march in armed guards to ensure anyone violating COVID restrictions suffers harsh consequences? If you think that can never happen in America, welcome to New Mexico.
Table 12.1. Death Rate Percentages Projected onto a City of 70,000 Residents.
Keep the number of deaths required for you to acquiesce to forced imprisonment and having all roads in and out of town closed by armed guards replete with third world barricades, in your pocket. We’ll then run some numbers and see how acclimated you are to our political purgatory. The global COVID death rate as of May 2nd, is 0.003%. For the U.S., the death rate is 0.02%, almost an order of magnitude higher, but keep in mind the U.S. intentionally overcounts. For a city of 70,000, these rates translate to the numbers shown in Table 12.1. For reference, the last entry in the table contains the current number of COVID deaths in Gallup, New Mexico, the only city in the world currently under COVID Martial Law, which his only five deaths per 70,000 higher than the national average.
Raise your hand if you had nineteen as the number of COVID deaths per 70,000 people that would cause you to welcome the imposition of martial law while surrendering your constitutional liberties? That’s the threshold in New Mexico, and that Gallup is on an Indian reservation is the additional item of evidence that should not be overlooked; only in our woke world we must. Imagine how the terrorist group Black Lives Matters (BLM) would react if the Illinois militia encircled the south side of Chicago and imposed martial law after 19 deaths. Aside from the fact that 19 deaths is just a slow Tuesday in Chicago, do you think martial law would be tolerated? Which parts of New York, New Jersey, or New Hampshire imposed martial law when their death rates soared well past Gallup’s death rate? How many times was the Riot Act used to imprison ignorant citizens of Louisiana who recklessly attended Mardi Gras?
Over half of the current 131 COVID deaths in New Mexico occurred within Native American populations who represents 7% of the state’s population, which indicates something is amiss, only because of wokeism we’re not allowed to point that out. I was accused of being both a racist and a Hitler disciple by a University of New Mexico Health School Associate Dean for pointing that COVID appears to be impacting various ethnicities differently. Is the answer necessarily placing reservation cities under martial law by perverting the Riot Act? It’s a matter of epidemiology that when the death rate within a demographic significantly exceeds that of the general population causal factors are likely linked to either genetics or environment. Unfortunately, in New Mexico, such logic is not allowed to permeate solutions.
It’s settled science, regardless of how much it melts snowflakes, that different demographic groups are genetically and environmentally different. Some demographics are genetically predisposed to certain medical conditions, such as hypertension, obesity, diabetes, and alcoholism. Similarly, how communities live and intermingle are different in various regions, which is causal factor for why influenza pandemics tend to originate in China. However, in our woke world, factoring science into possible mitigation measures is not permitted, just as we’re not allowed to investigate conditions at senior care facilities where most New Mexico deaths have occurred because that might reveal a lack of government oversight or worse yet, immoral malfeasance like in New York.
Note: This chapter is based on a series of 2020 essays submitted to major media outlets, including the NY Times, Washington Post, and Chicago Tribune. The essays can be found at: https://rmdolin.com/commentary/
Read the entire “Truth and Trust in Crisis,” book.
[1] Herd Immunity: What Is It and Can It End The Coronavirus Pandemic? (webmd.com)
[2] Herd immunity | definition of herd immunity by Medical dictionary (thefreedictionary.com)
[3] Attenuation | definition of attenuation by Medical dictionary (thefreedictionary.com)
[4] COVID Day 42: Up The Down Staircase – An Engineer’s Perspective (rmdolin.com)
[5] Quarantine Day 30: Mythical Apex Day – An Engineer’s Perspective (rmdolin.com)
[6] Chickenpox party: Risks, vaccination, and more (medicalnewstoday.com)
[7] Rethinking Herd Immunity and the Covid-19 Response End Game | Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (jhu.edu)
[8] Omicron analysis shows no clear evidence for increased virulence or lethality (news-medical.net)
[9] Sweden could have ‘herd immunity’ by next month, claims its infectious diseases chief | Daily Mail Online
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