“The idea that everybody needs to be vaccinated (against Covid19) is ... scientifically baseless. [T]hose who’ve been infected are already immune.”
Martin Kulldorff, Epidemiologist, Harvard Medical School Jay Bhattacharya, Professor of Health Policy, Stanford University
Meaning that the epidemic will be over as soon as most people have gained immunity through infection. Then we will have herd immunity, which is to say that there will be enough people with durable and robust natural immunity to prevent further flareups of the disease.
Covid infections will continue, particularly among new recruits to the population, these being mainly children who are at negligible risk from the disease. In addition, infections will occur among those previously infected. However, such infections will generally be either asymptomatic or of limited severity due to immune system priming by prior infection. In particular, memory T-cells in mucosal epithelia will recognize the virus and instigate an early, broad-spectrum, immune system response that prevents the development of a high viral load and hence severe illness or high infectiousness.
What that means is that masks, lockdowns, and social distancing, by impeding achievement of herd immunity, do not hasten, but rather delay, the end of the Covid pandemic.
Further it means that we are being consistently, insistently, persistently, and insolently lied to by people such as Dr. Fauci -- the man who financed the creation of Covid -- who pretend that we must give up our natural right to work and to socialize freely until such time as we have all been jabbed with an untested and, in at least tens of thousands of cases, lethal so-called vaccine that fails either to prevent infection or disease transmission and that has to be renewed frequently to confer whatever minimal benefit it is supposed to provide.
For those with conditions predisposing to severe Covid illness, vaccination may be advisable. For healthy individuals under 50, the advisability of vaccination plus twice-yearly booster shots with a vaccine that has already caused hundreds of thousands if not millions of adverse effects, including tens of thousands of deaths, is highly questionable.
For tyrannical governments such as that of Canada's Justin the Apologist, a man who lusts for dictatorship, to seek to compel vaccination of the entire population, amounts to a crime against humanity.
They think Covid spreads on the Internets, or what?
Further proof, anyhow, that the Western university is, not only a swamp of stupidity, but an institution for brainwashing and for subordinating students to tyranny.
We have to stop the spread: masks, school closures, business closures, the old and seriously ill driven from hospitals to make way for Covid cases, jabs, double jabs, booster jabs, lockdowns, obesity made epidemic, drug overdose deaths rising, whatever it takes, we have to stop the spread.
But it keeps spreading. Where will it end? It will end with what the vax liars will not countenance: herd immunity.
Herd Immunity develops when the number of people with immunity to a disease rises to the point at which, averaged over time, each new infection results in disease transmission to just one other person.
At that point, there may be seasonal flare ups of disease, for example, following the end-of-summer return to school, or during the winter months when people living at higher latitudes are exposed to less sunshine and thus become deficient in Vitamin D, while spending more time indoors in proximity with other people. But averaged from year to year, a population with herd immunity will experience a low but more or less constant rate of disease infection. At that point the disease is said to be endemic.
That more or less constant endemic rate of infection will reflect two things. One is the rate of recruitment to the population of people without immunity, which is determined chiefly by the birth rate. The other is the rate at which natural immunity is lost -- if it is lost, which is apparently not presently known.
How could the pandemic end otherwise?
If we had a vaccine that prevented infection and disease transmission.
But we don't have that.
What we have is a so-called vaccine that neither prevents infection, nor the development of a high viral load in those infected, nor disease transmission by vaccinated persons.
At best, the vaccine prevents the development of symptomatic disease, though often it fails even to do that, with many Covid deaths being among the vaxed.
So how do we get to herd immunity?
By letting the disease spread.
Especially, we should allow the disease to spread among those least likely to suffer severe illness.
That means children, young adults and people up to the age of fifty without predisposing conditions such as diabetes and obesity.
Vaccinating children is not only pointless, it is evil.
It is evil because it prevents the acquisition of full-spectrum immunity, at a stage in life when susceptibility to symptomatic Covid illness is minimal -- significantly less than the risk of severe illness from the flu.
It is time now for politicians and social leaders to grasp the facts about Covid, end the Covid terror campaign, shut down the lying vaxxers, and allow a return to normal life.
The British Medical Journal reports that cases of the common cold in England are occurring at a daily rate of 5.7 per 100,000 of population. Covid infections, are reported to number 41,779 (7-day mean) as of July 21, 2021, which implies a rate equivalent to 1412 per 100,000. So, under current conditions of masking, social distancing, pinging, tracking, and tracing, Covid is 248 times as infectious as the common cold, which itself is so infectious that hope of its eradication has been long abandoned.
Thus, as with the common cold, which is attributable to half a dozen viruses including several members of the Corona virus type, we can expect that almost everyone will receive an an infectious dose of the Covid virus. Moreover, given the poor efficacy of the experimental Covid "vaccines " (61% failure rate of the Pfizer vaccine according to a report from Israel), we can expect the majority of the World's population will, in due course, have a Covid infection.
Fortunately, although Covid is apparently the product of gain-of-function lab research, it was evidently not engineered for mass slaughter, since the overall death rate in Britain, for example, is currently little more than one in a thousand cases (46,878 7-day mean daily new cases, versus 55 7-day mean daily deaths).
Worldwide deaths attributable to Covid by the time the virus has reached every inhabitant of the globe could, therefore, total something like seven million, or about the same as would result from an flu pandemic due to a virus of typical virulence infecting every inhabitant of the globe.
The biggest uncertainty about the way Covid will ultimately play out relates to the robustness of the immunity among those who have recovered from Covid. Certainly, they will have much better immunity than that induced by the mRNA so-called vaccines, as they will have durable full-spectrum immunity, including T-cell immunity rather than a limited range of antibodies that dissipate in a matter of months.
That those with a Covid infection have T-cell immunity means that their immune system has a long-lasting memory of the virus, and will initiate a broad range of defensive responses in the event of a future encounter, thereby preventing reinfection.
Moreover, because of the way immune system memory cells are able to identify relatively small parts of a viral genome, T-cell immunity is not lost as a result of minor, or even quite large, viral mutations. Natural immunity, unlike mRNA "vaccine" induced antibodies, is fully effective against those variants or scariants that the media are using to terrorize the population into accepting the more or less useless quackcines.
The outlook, then, is that despite the promotion of novel so-called vaccines, the human population will achieve herd immunity to Covid through infection not vaccination. That is, herd immunity as that term was understood before the World Health Organization (which is heavily funded by the Gates's foundation, which in turn is heavily invested in "vaccine" makers), redefined the term to mean widespread immunity due, not to infection, but only to immunity achieved through vaccination.
Universities have now apparently abandoned reason as a basis for discussion and persuasion. Watch out when this reaches the math, physics and engineering departments Or maybe it already has.
"Variants Projected to Climb in May, Tighter Measures Urged," reads the Page 4 headline in today's (Victoria) TimesColonist.
And, as the article so headlined reports, British Columbia now has 102 Covid patients in intensive care.
Wow, that sure is scary.
Um, well maybe not, though sure it's tough on the unfortunate 102.
One hundred and two ICU patients equals zero point six naughts two percent of British Columbia's population of five million.
So how unusual is it to have that many ICU patients with a respiratory disease?
Perhaps not very. Respiratory disease, mainly flu or pneumonia, is a major cause of death, and those deaths usually come in a bunch at the peak of the flu season. So to have half of British Columbia's ICU beds occupied by Covid patients at what is supposed to be a new peak in Covid infections, is neither surprising, nor especially alarming.
What is, if not alarming, certainly remarkable is the change in the ratio of reported Covid cases to deaths over the course of the epidemic.
On May 6, 2020, which was the peak of the epidemic in British Columbia, as measured by deaths, 1450 new Covid cases were reported together with 189 Covid deaths.
Now, as we are reported to be battling a massive covid second wave, something surprising has happened:
While cases as reported the day before yesterday (April 8, 2021) are up more than five-fold from the May 6, 2020 peak, deaths are down five-fold, to a daily total of 38. So the ratio of deaths to cases has dropped from one in 7.7 to one in 210.
How to account for this?
Almost certainly it is the result of increased use of the PCR Covid test which has a huge false positive rate.
Because of the use of the highly misleading test, both cases and deaths are almost certainly being greatly exaggerated, but as the actual number of Covid deaths is declining, whereas the number being tested for Covid is increasing, the number of false positive cases inevitably grows faster than the number of false positive deaths.
But hear it from Dr. Yeadon, with reference to the UK, in this conversation with James Delingpole.
According to Yeadon, the Covid epidemic in Britain would be long over except that SAGE, the UK Government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies says it is not.
Further, he asserts that Britain achieved Covid19 herd immunity by the summer of last year, due largely to the existence in the population of pre-existent T-Cell immunity resulting from infection from other corona viruses, including several common cold viruses.
For similar reasons,it is likely that, in Canada, the Covid19 epidemic continues because the Government of Canada and Provincial premiers prefer to mess with peoples' lives and piss away billions for unnecessary Covid relief measures than acknowledge reality.
How well does the Astra-Zeneca vaccine work in the elderly? Only two months ago the leaders of France and Germany told us: Officials in Germany claim the Astra-Zeneca vaccine is only 8% effective in those over 65.
The purpose of the vaccines is obviously not to protect us. The vaccines enrich Pharma. The vaccine passports enable much greater control over the citizenry. There may be additional agendas. But this is clearly not about our health.
Yesterday I posted an article from American Front Line Doctors based on a conversation with former Pfizer Vice President and Chief Science Officer, Dr. Mike Yeadon, concerning his view of the Covid19 pandemic and Britain's response to it.
At the time, I was unaware that the links in that article, as posted here, were not working. That problem is now fixed. Among those links is one to a videotaped interview Dr. Yeadon gave in November last year in which he argues with both clarity and authority that:
(1) the Covid epidemic in Britain has long passed its peak;
(2) the UK Government's scientific advisory group, SAGE, using an inappropriate criterion, massively underestimated the proportion of the population with Covid immunity;
(3) highly sensitive antibody tests have shown that 65% of UK care home residents who were never sick with Covid, had Covid antibodies, indicating pre-existent immunity, likely from exposure to other corona viruses, including some common cold viruses;
(4) the British population now has Covid19 herd immunity, and has had since early summer last year;
(5) the number of cases reported is hugely exaggerated because of the use of a totally unreliable PCR test which yields a huge false positive rate;
(6) the number of deaths reported is hugely exaggerated for the same reason the number of cases is hugely exaggerated, because of the use of a totally unreliable PCR test which yields a huge false positive rate;
(7) lockdowns, which cause great damage both economically and to the mental health of many people, do nothing to limit the spread of the virus;
(8) differences in case rates and death rates among countries likely reflect the severity in each country of the previous year's flu season, as that determines the number of very fragile old people who are at high risk of death from a respiratory virus.
From the video, it is clear that Dr. Yeadon is both smart and well informed, and absolutely worth the attention of anyone seriously interested in why, in the name of Covid, life in most Western countries is being totally disrupted: disrupted, so Dr. Yeadon covincingly argues, for no good reason.
Here's the video:
Postscript:
Last November, when Dr. Yeadon made the above statement, UK excess death stats, if taken as a proxy for Covid mortality, were consistent with Yeadon's contention that the Covid epidemic was over.
However, in 2021, deaths reported as due to covid have spiked even higher than in the spring of 2020, reaching a peak of around of 1725 on January 27, 2021, versus a one-day total of 942 at the peak in the spring of 2020.
But, as the above-linked UK excess deaths chart indicates, there is no corresponding rise in excess deaths in 2021. The implication is thus strong that the 2021 rise in Covid "deaths" is an artifact due to the increased and enormously expensive use of the now widely discredited PCR test for Covid19, which is known to generate huge numbers of false positives.
Altogether, the evidence supports Dr. Yeadon's claim that the Covid epidemic in Britain passed its peak in the spring of 2020, at which time the mainly asymptomatic spread of the disease had resulted in widespread and long-lasting immunity, aka herd immunity.
If that is the case, all the rest, the lockdowns, face masks, social distancing, school closures, multi-billion-pound testing, track and trace, economic disruption, looting of the Treasury, etc., has all been fraud, theft, bullshit, and mass imbecility.
And if the truth ever gets out, the only thing that will save the utterly disgusting Johnson government are the contemptible social climbers of the Blair, Brown, Milliband and Starmer ilk -- haters all of the stinking masses -- who constitute Her Majesty's [dis]Loyal Opposition.
What we are seeing is a progressive coup against America's constitutional government by shyster plutocrats and tech companies, including Google, which owns U-Tube -- the 21st Century's Memory Hole, which, while progressively throttling it, hosts this blog.
India, is reported to have achieved Covid herd immunity, with about half the population, or just under seven hundred million people, having Covid19-specific antibodies. That means India is essentially finished with Covid as a national disaster.
Covid deaths recorded in India total 155,000, indicating a Covid19 infection fatality rate of around one in 5000. That is around one tenth of the rates reported in Europe and North America. That difference reflects, at least in part, the steep age-dependence of Covid mortality and a difference in population age profile. India has fewer than 6% of its population aged over 60 versus around 26% in Europe and North America.
In addition, the European and North American infection fatality rates are undoubtedly greatly exaggerated due to underestimation of the infection rate, which is based on reported cases, not population-wide antibody surveys.
The inference is clear: The Western states have totally mishandled the epidemic. The virus should have been allowed to spread among the young and resilient, while the elderly should have been given every means to isolate themselves — if they so chose. And it should be emphasized that isolation of the elderly should have been entirely voluntary. At the age of 75 plus, why should one not take a 10% risk of dying a year or two prematurely due to Covid, rather than being locked up for much, or perhaps all, of the rest of one's life?
What the response of the Western nations to Covid19 demonstrates is either remarkably poor judgement in government, or a conspiracy to undermine Western economies and crush the spirit of the people.
The Great Barrington Declaration is a call from distinguished scientists and doctors for policies to allow Covid19 to spread unchecked among those at least risk of death or severe illness due to the virus, while protecting from infection those at most risk of death or severe illness due to the virus. The object of the proposal is to allow population immunity to the virus to rise, at minimum cost in terms of deaths and severe illness, to the point at which the spread of the virus is greatly impeded, at which point all can resume normal social life at minimal risk.
The proposal is entirely reasonable, but it is framed and presented in a way that makes it easy for Covid-boondoggle-bureaucrats, vaccine entrepreneurs, and New-World-Order promoters such as Prince Charles, all of whom see great advantage in promoting Covid19-related social and economic disruption, to characterize the proposal as hifalutin, academical and therefore worthy only to be trashed.
Instead, folks must go for the WWHIN:
WE WANT HERD IMMUNITY NOW
How does that work?
Simply. No need for a multi-billion-dollar bureaucratic boondoggle. Just the cooperation of the media to ensure that everyone is aware:
First, of their age-dependent risk of severe illness or death from Covid19.
Over 20: Covid 19 may give you a severe bout of a flu-like illness with after effects that could last for months
Over 50: You're at elevated risk of severe illness or death from Covid19
Over 65: You are at high risk, of severe illness or death (10% probability of death) from Covid19
Over 75: You're at extreme risk of severe illness or death from Covid19.
Second, of their increased risk of severe illness or death from Covid19 due to medical conditions such as obesity, diabetes, heart, circulatory or respiratory disease.
Third, of the best means to avoid infection, these including:
Avoiding hospitals and care homes where you will be at high risk of exposure to Covid19-infected patients and staff, and
Avoiding social gatherings and crowded places including shops, restaurants and bars.
That's it. Fat fools like BoJo and thin fools like Dr. Fauci can then stand back and allow everyone to do as they please. Young people will continue to socialize and get colds, the flu and Covid19. As a result, population-wide Covid19 immunity will build rapidly to the point that viral transmission is sharply and permanently reduced.
Older people will still get colds, the flu and Covid19, but being mostly very much less socially active than the young, they will suffer fewer infections than the young. And in fact, the inverse relationship between age and social activity means that, with sensible self-imposed precautions, very few indeed of those most vulnerable to Covid19 will be infected.
True some people will show a lack of caution and some, despite being cautious, will be the victims of bad luck, and of these some will pay the penalty of Covid19 infection leading to severe illness or death.
For obsessive compulsives who combine ignorance with emotionality, the fixation on Covid19 avoidance is a hysterical response to irrational fear. But for most, the fixation on avoidance is simply the consequence of media brainwashing to create what Prince Charles has described as:
And what is this more sustainable course? What we're getting obviously: a shutdown (mainly permanent) of most of the small business sector of the economy to further enrich the globalist money power, while driving real wages down as central banks print trillions in new currency to destroy the wealth of savers and bond holders.
Herd immunity is the only proper public policy goal. By vaccination, certainly, if and when a vaccine becomes available, but in the meantime, through the natural process of acquired immunity following infection by a virus with a kill rate little if any greater than that of the seasonal flu for all but the elderly and a few others who have the option to self-isolate.
To pursue the alternative of indefinite avoidance at the expense of the economy, of childrens' education, and the many other ill consequences of lockdowns is treason.
Unherd, October 17, 2020: Yesterday in parliament, Matt Hancock explained to the house why, “on the substance”, the central claim of the Great Barrington Declaration was “emphatically not true”.
“Many diseases never reach herd immunity – including measles, malaria, AIDS and flu…” he said. “Herd immunity is a flawed goal – even if we could get to it, which we can’t.”
Let’s have a look at the diseases he mentions. Measles, if it arrives on ‘virgin soil’, can devastate a population. In Tahiti and Moorea and the South-east and North-west Marquesas, between 20% and 70% of the population was lost to the first epidemic. Natural infection with measles provides lifelong immunity, and we now have a vaccine which provides similar solid, durable protection. We have not been able to eliminate the disease, but those who rather selfishly choose not to vaccinate their children are only able make that choice because the risks of infection are kept low by those who are immune — currently, a combination of those, like me, who caught it and recovered and many others for whom it is vaccine induced. The vaccine does not work in babies, which is why you have to wait till they are a year old before they get it. We can do this because herd immunity keeps the risk of infection down, so they are are unlikely to be infected in their first year of life. Without this herd protection, many under ones would die (as they regularly do in sub-Saharan Africa) despite a vaccine being available.
What these people are urging is that the Covid19 virus be allowed to spread freely among those who are least are risk of serious illness or death, thereby achieving herd immunity.
Herd immunity acquired naturally through the spread of a novel infectious agent depends on the acqusition of immunity by survivors of the infection, which thus limits viral spread, since the proportion of the population to which the virus can be spread is reduced. This effect is measured by changes in the so-called Reproduction number or R0, which is the number of persons to whom each infected person passes the virus. As the virus spreads and the proportion of the population with immunity rises, R0 falls and, with it, the number of new infections. Ultimately, R0 reachs a value of one at which point the number of new infections stabilizes at a low level relative to the number at the height of the epidemic. At this stage the virus is said to be in a state of endemic equilibrium, meaning it won't go away but the number of new infections will not flare up as during the epidemic, but remain at a more or less constant low level. In due course, it is hoped that an effective anti-Covid19 vaccine will be available. Then R0 can be driven well below 1.0 and the disease will become quite rare.
One question this strategy raises is how close is the world or any particular country to achieving herd immunity. According to the Johns Hopkins University Corona Virus Resource Center, the total number of Covid19 cases worldwide is 35 million. or about zero point four percent of the world's population. That implies we are very far from worldwide herd immunity, which would require perhaps four and a half billion infections, or 60% of the world's population. Or so it is believed. However, some research suggests that due to differences among individuals and groups in their social interactions, herd immunity requires infection of only about 40% of the population of concern, or three billion infections worldwide, but that is still vastly greater than the number of infections reported by the Johns Hopkins University Corona Virus Resource Center.
But the number of infections worldwide may be much greater than the data from Johns Hopkins suggest. According to an announcement today from the World Health Organization, global infections now total 750 million, or more than 20 times the Johns Hopkins University estimate. That number, combined with the lower estimate of the numbers for herd immunity, implies that worldwide, the population could already be one quarter of the way to herd immunity. If that is correct, and if as proposed by the scientists calling for an end to lockdowns we protect the vulnerable part of the population, which is to say those over 60 years of age, then we could be shot of Covid19 as a major problem quite soon.
Related: The Great Barrington Declaration
As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection. Read more
You will see in the chart (after 7 min 36 seconds) in the Spectator video below that UK Covid19 deaths are now running well below deaths due to either flu or pneumonia. This means that Britain's "second wave" is a hoax.
Following that chart, there is an interview with Dr. Sunetra Gupta, Oxford University epidemiologist who argues that lockdown does not resolve the problem that Covid presents, which must eventually be faced, and means accepting an “endemic equilibrium such as we enjoy with influenza …”, which she says, should be achieved by allowing the virus to circulate while protecting the vulnerable.
In effect, Professor Gupta is saying that herd immunity is the end game, and as she has argued in various publications, herd immunity may already have been reached in parts of Britain where serological surveys indicate up to 20% of the population have Covid antibodies, while up to 60% may have T-Cell immunity from infection by virtue of exposure to other corona viruses.
Herd immunity may also have been achieved in the US. In late June CDC Director, Dr. Robert Redfield, stated that US Covid cases may be ten times the number reported. Currently, the number of reported cases is 7.3 million. If that is a 90% under-report, then the actual number of cases is equal to 21% of the US population. Add in the 60% of the population that may have T-cell immunity to Covid infection due to prior exposure to other corona viruses and you have the numbers for herd immunity. What that means is that the rate of infections in the future will stabilize around the present number, though with seasonal variation, as with other viruses.
Serological tests on 21,387 residents of Delhi by the Indian Centre for Disease Control suggest that 23.5 per pent of the city’s population have antibodies to Sars-Cov-2, the virus which causes Covid-19. Remarkably, this is a higher proportion than has been measured in New York, where 22.7 per cent were found to have been infected with the virus. The tests in Delhi were carried out between 27 June and 10 July. Since then, the epidemic seems to have peaked and receded.
The infection rate comes as a surprise given Delhi’s relatively low numbers of deaths. As the population of Delhi’s National Capital Territory is 16 million, the antibody figures suggest that 3.76 million people in the city have been infected. Up until Saturday, the Indian government had recorded 3,571 deaths in Delhi. That would give an Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) of just 0.094 per cent.
The Spectator also reports on the "absence of evidence" concerning the value of wearing a face mask:
A report from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health has reviewed the evidence on whether individuals in the community who don’t have Covid-19 symptoms should wear face masks to reduce the spread of the virus. It says randomised trials show a small protective effect from wearing medical face masks, but a nationwide training programme would be needed as incorrect use limits their effectiveness. On the use of non-medical face masks, it says there is ‘no reliable evidence’. The review concludes that, with infection rates low in Norway, ‘assuming that 20% of people infectious with Sars-CoV-2 do not have symptoms, and assuming a risk reduction of 40% for wearing face mask, 200,000 people would need to wear facemasks to prevent one new infection per week in the current epidemiological situation’. So, ‘wearing face masks... is not recommended for individuals in the community without respiratory symptoms’.
(1) why are we led by such apparently useless people as Trump, Trudeau, Johnson, for example, with the only alternative available to the public being people of similar calibre — Joe Biden, for example.
(2) are these buffoonish characters the only ones available or are they post turtles providing cover for those engaged in a transformation of the world: a transformation from a world in which freedom of the individual was among the highest values to a world dominated by a globalist elite where the common man will be seen as nothing more than, for now, a necessary evil, and a form of life to be eliminated as soon as artificially intelligent machinery is available to take his place.
A team of researchers from The University of Manchester, Salford Royal and Res Consortium, have shown that a significant proportion of people in the UK—over 25%—is likely to have been infected already by the COVID-19 virus.
The study—published this week in the International Journal of Clinical Practice—is the first to use the published local authority data to assess the cumulative impact of infection since the COVID-19 outbreak began.
This has enabled them to calculate the R-value—the number of people infected by one person with COVID-19—within each local authority area.
The published case data from the 144 Local Authorities analyzed by the team now gives an R value of well below 1.
So, with a reported UK Covid19 death toll, so far, of 33,614, a 25% infection rate, and a population of 67 million, the infection-specific Covid19 mortality rate is just under one in 2000, or 0.05%, about the same as the seasonal flu.
If, as in Canada, Italy, the US, and many other countries, most Covid 19 deaths in the UK are among elderly residents of care-homes, those numbers imply a Covid19 death toll among the non-care-home-residents of between 0.01 and 0.25%, or one per 40,000.
Ample justification for wrecking the economy, and driving people nuts due to weeks of pointless incarceration, no doubt, but time now to end the insanely obsessive caution and allow people to get on with their lives.
Breaking down the New York City report, Cuomo noted thatthe Bronx had the highest infection rate of the five boroughs, with a staggering 27.1% of respondents having COVID-19 antibodies. ...
“That number remains obnoxiously and terrifyingly high,” Cuomo said. “It’s not where we want it to be.” Source
There is a pernicious idea that the media, politicians and public health officials in the US, Canada and elsewhere seek to encourage, namely, that the spread of Covid19 is a bad thing. Actually, it's a good thing: here's why.
Epidemics don't end with everyone in quarantine, because life cannot be sustained by a population in perpetual quarantine. Eventually, a quarantined population must get back to work. then people will have to come face to face once again, and the disease will resume it's spread.
So how do epidemics end? They end when the number of people with immunity to the disease rises to the point that the number of people each infected person infects falls below one. At that point, disease spread slows and dies.*
And what determines who has immunity? There are two key factors. One is the acquisition of immunity among those who have been infected and survived the disease. The other is the process of natural selection. Those who lack the necessary immune system genes to fend off the disease die, so that a higher proportion of the residual population has the genes that provide either immunity to infection, or the capacity for recovery from infection.
The seasonal flu is an example of a non-lethal disease that induces immunity in those infected. The plague, or black death, is a an example of a more or less lethal disease that kills many but not all that it infects, leaving a more resistant population more or less immune to the disease.
And, in the worst case, are diseases against which an entire population is vulnerable, and in that case the entire population dies, as was the fate of many Amerindian communities afflicted by diseases brought by explorers and colonists from Europe to the New World.
Covid-19, fortunately, is a relatively mild disease for most who are infected by it, leaving them with protective antibodies that reduce susceptibility to future infection. The Covid epidemics working theirs way through the nations of the world seem to be killing no more than 30 to 40 people per thousand of those infected (at least in the developed world), these being mainly the elderly with existing heart or respiratory diseases**.
The end to the Covid-19 pandemic will thus occur when the virus has gone through every population causing an increased level of immunity that halts the disease's spread.
What proportion of the population must have immunity before the rate of recovery from the disease exceeds the rate of infection is not something that can be exactly predicted, since it depends on the way people in each community interact. In a nation of hermits, the disease would never spread and there could be no epidemic. Otherwise, the particular features of specific communities, in particular the way in which people interact with one another, but also many other factors such as age distribution, air quality, nutrition, etc., determine the infection rate that must be attained before an epidemic dies.
What that means is that although lock-downs, quarantines, social distancing and face masks can slow the spread of disease, they have no effect on the incidence of the disease at which disease spread slows and ultimately stops.
So well done The Bronx. With 27% of the population reported to have antibodies for Covid19, they may not be there quite yet, but they are well on the way to the condition of so-called herd immunity, when immunity to the pathogen is sufficiently widespread to cause its spread to slow and die even after a return to normal life.
Despite what crackpots such as Ron Unz of the Unz Review, New York State Governor Cuomo and the political class generally, plus most public health officials tell you, the spread of Covid19 and hence of immunity to Covid19 is good news that heralds the return to normality. But don't expect to hear that from the gerontological medical experts, the politicians and the vendors of patent medicines and vaccines now in the limelight and positioned to profit by the present panic.
______
* In New York City, the hardest hit place in North America if not the world, the number of new infections reported daily is down to about one third of the peak rate, indicating that, under present conditions of restricted social mobility, herd immunity has been achieved and the epidemic is dying. An end to the lock-downs in NY City may increase the infection rate if the percentage of the population with immunity is insufficiently high for herd immunity under the changed social dynamics. Certainly, an end to the lock-downs will cause a temporary increase in the infection rate, but a new downward trend leading to extinction of the virus will resume within a reasonably short time.
What percentage of the population must have immunity to achieve herd immunity is impossible to model accurately since people do not interact randomly, but in many distinctive ways according to factors such as age, profession, the need to commute, etc. Certainly, the percentage of infected people needed for herd immunity will be less than the theoretical 67% (assuming an R nought of 3.0), and quite possibly less than half that number.
** In the Bronx, with 27% having Covid-19 antibodies, the number infected is around 382,000 people, of whom 1,700 have died for an infection-specific mortality rate of 0.44%. Of those who have died, 545 were resident of nursing homes or adult care facilities, and most had other serious medical conditions. For the remainder of the population the infection-specific mortality rate has been 0.3%. (Source: Riverdale Press).