Herd immunity is a real effect. If vaccines help you not catch the disease, then an unvaccinated person is less likely to catch the disease in a population with a high vaccination rate. Because the disease doesn’t spread as much.
If you can lower the infection rate so that on average, each sick person results in less than one other sick person, infections die out instead of growing. That is “herd immunity.”
Covid has evolved to barely provide any immunity. Up to 70 percent up to 9 months. People catch it several times a year and long covid is as much a risk as it ever was.
I’ll grant you the effect is less because of the mutations (and I would be interested in seeing a paper about it, I might have to look up some research), but it also doesn’t help that the vaccination rate is and has been so low because of misinformation, to say the least.
I believe in the quoted piece they refer to an idea that people who are both in high risk group but also can’t take the vaccine because of their conditions will have it harder because of mutations happening to the virus in people who decided not to take it but have it easy and develop natural immunity to it.
No one quoted any piece. Heard immunity is a fairly simple concept about preventing the spread by having most people immune to it, so babies and others who can’t be vaccinated are unlikely to ever be exposed to it.
It’s not about mutations, but it is another issue if you allow something to spread it will have more opportunities to mutate and become more virulent
Even if a leaky vaccine leads to a more virulent strain (it didn’t for covid as far as I know), if heard immunity is achieved that makes it hard to spread it might never make it to a vulnerable individual.
Herd immunity is a real effect. If vaccines help you not catch the disease, then an unvaccinated person is less likely to catch the disease in a population with a high vaccination rate. Because the disease doesn’t spread as much.
If you can lower the infection rate so that on average, each sick person results in less than one other sick person, infections die out instead of growing. That is “herd immunity.”
Covid has evolved to barely provide any immunity. Up to 70 percent up to 9 months. People catch it several times a year and long covid is as much a risk as it ever was.
No herd immunity.
I’ll grant you the effect is less because of the mutations (and I would be interested in seeing a paper about it, I might have to look up some research), but it also doesn’t help that the vaccination rate is and has been so low because of misinformation, to say the least.
I believe in the quoted piece they refer to an idea that people who are both in high risk group but also can’t take the vaccine because of their conditions will have it harder because of mutations happening to the virus in people who decided not to take it but have it easy and develop natural immunity to it.
No one quoted any piece. Heard immunity is a fairly simple concept about preventing the spread by having most people immune to it, so babies and others who can’t be vaccinated are unlikely to ever be exposed to it.
It’s not about mutations, but it is another issue if you allow something to spread it will have more opportunities to mutate and become more virulent
Even if a leaky vaccine leads to a more virulent strain (it didn’t for covid as far as I know), if heard immunity is achieved that makes it hard to spread it might never make it to a vulnerable individual.