According to the Wikipedia definition, herd immunity “…occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population has become immune to an infection [from a contagious disease], whether through previous infections or vaccination, thereby reducing the likelihood of infection for individuals who lack immunity.” I kept waiting for this to happen with Covid. It never did, even though it’s estimated that 95 percent of the country has had the disease and nearly 70 percent have been vaccinated. Apparently, the notion of herd immunity should never have been raised. According to a lengthy interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci in The New York Times, the problem is that the virus (SARS-CoV-2) was/is a moving target.
Herd immunity is based on the premise that the virus doesn’t
change, and that when you get infected or vaccinated, you’re protected for
decades, if not forever. Covid doesn’t act like other viruses. With Covid,
protection is measured in months. The virus you got infected with in January
2020 is very different from the virus you got in 2021 or 2022. Remember all
those variants—Alpha, Beta, Delta, Omicron? New variants are continuously
emerging. What's more, viruses that replicate in mucosal passages, as the Covid virus does, can't be eradicated by vaccines that create systemic immunity. Making matters worse is the fact that 50 to 60 percent of virus
transmissions come from people who are asymptomatic—they don’t know they have
the disease.
Beginning with the Delta variant, and now in 2023 more than
half our deaths are among vaccinated people (“breakthrough” infections), 85 percent
of which are old people. The risk to people in their 80s or 90s is hundreds of
times as high as it is to someone in their 20s or 30s. Still, according to
Fauci, if you’re vaccinated and boosted and have available therapy, you are not
going to die, no matter how old you are. Vaccinations do protect against severe
disease—even if you’re old like me.
For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.
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