Quote:
Originally Posted by upallnight
I believe for Herd Immunity to be effective 70+% of the population must have the antibodies in their system. In other word 70+% that survive has the antibodies in their system. The people that don't survive are not counted as part of that 70+%.
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It is not known how long the antibodies from recovered COVID 19 patients are effective so including those that have recovered may not be relevant. Early studies have shown effectiveness may only be a few weeks. So those that have antibodies are not a part of the 70%. There were some that promoted allowing people in order to reach heard immunity. Currently about 23.5 million have recovered. If 70% was the number that means another 200 million would have to recover from the virus. That would mean 10s of thousands more would die before we got there.
So far experts are saying the vaccine is equally effective on the mutations but those new variations have been more contagious. That could also change. Many states are yet to establish enough inoculation sites or are at limited capacity. Fauci has increased the percent to 75-85% and suggested it may take as high as 90% as it did for measles. The point being no one knows for sure.
With all the unknowns the best and quickest course of action to get back to the new normal is still to follow the guidelines and consider all else to be helpful but not the panacea. The guidelines have proven to be effective since the beginning, months before the virus was even in the US. But millions choose to believe otherwise, don't know any better or think not wearing a mask or not following the guidelines is symbolic of support for Trump or mistakenly believe wearing a mask makes them look weak.
IMO, getting back to a new normal will be at least midyear 2022.