Here's a chart showing the daily administration of COVID-19 vaccine in the US:
You can see the problem. I'm not saying that vaccinations will follow the straight trendline I've shown. I'm only saying that if they do, we'll end up with a total of about 320 million jabs by the end of June. That's 160 million people fully vaccinated, or a bit less than 60% of the eligible population. That's not enough.
This is why the downturn in vaccinations is so dangerous. We have time to turn it around with lotteries or donuts or bottles of beer or whatever, but turn it around we must. That line needs to flatten out.
Prospects for vaccinating ~ 80% of the population and thereby achieving herd immunity looks bleak. We are probably looking at the prevalence of endemic covid-19 requiring the repeated vaccination of the willing.
And we don't know 80% is even the number. Might well be higher. Not long ago 70 was the number being quoted. Variants + relaxing of social distancing play a role.
We know. R0 is just over 3 without vaccines and without social distancing, masks, school closures, .... 70% vaccinated will push R0 below 1.
Which variant are you referring to? The original, our current prevalent and more contagious b.1.1.7 UK variant, or the even more contagious b.1.617 Indian variant that's just starting to get a foothold?
Because they all have different R0s. If the Indian variant manages to take over, you really think 70% will be enough?
We know. R0 is just over 3 without vaccines and without social distancing, masks, school closures, .... 70% vaccinated will push R0 below 1.
A cursory glance at the research indicates we don't, in fact, know that at all. This scholarly articles quotes an R0 of 5.7, which requires 82% vaccination level:
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0282_article
This one cites an upper bound R0 of over 7:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html
We were looking endemic coronavirus from almost the beggining. Too easily spread and too widespread for that to be stopped.
Nah, lots of countries stopped it cold. Restrictions + vaccinations could have ended it. Unfortunately that's not the path we're on.
Nah, lots of countries stopped it cold.
Not lots of countries, no. At most about ten. And he/she did write endemicity was settling in "almost" from the beginning. Which I think is correct, depending on what is meant by "beginning." The United States squandered the early prep period (January/February). And by the time the first lockdowns were in place there were bad, multiple breakouts in a number of widely scattered metro areas (NYC, Boston, Seattle, SFB, New Orleans, Chicago, Detroit, etc) as well as a slower but still serious spread affecting other, wide swaths of the country. I believe the pattern globally shows that, to have a prayer of truly squelching covid, a country has to take decisive, effective actions sufficiently early on, so that, when a bad eruption happens, it can be isolated, and the virus hasn't already reached widespread presence in multiple regions (IOW the cusp of endemicity). I believe in the parallel universe where the US did as well as Australia, we were doing a lot of things right so early that, by the time the country realized an American city was dealing with a significant outbreak, it was just that city (or at most two/three) and there was little/no community spread elsewhere (or at least low enough that strict lockdowns/social distancing could handle the problem).
Basically the US didn't really start fighting the pandemic in a major way until well into March. That was probably about a month too late. (Canadian-style results might still have been attainable at that point had we done a solid job executing our game plan as a country, but Australia/NZ was no longer in the cards).
It's clear that to truly squelch the disease, a country must be either (i) east Asian (I don't know why that is, but it clearly has explanatory power in a statistical sense) or (ii) an island. The US is neither. Also, don't be so sure that any country has been successful at this point. The Indian government was taking victory laps in February.
Exactly!
It's clear that to truly squelch the disease, a country must be either (i) east Asian (I don't know why that is...
It seems far more likely that the nations that have squelched covid have done so because they've implemented and rigorously enforced effective policies, not because they're islands (China's not an island, but has land borders with 14 countries; and sick man UK IS and island) or because they're DNA is primarily Asian (Australia and NZ are majority white).
This isn't witchcraft. It's science. We don't know everything yet about the novel coronavirus, but we know enough about what works to have a good idea as to why some countries have succeeded: they've denied the virus access to the hosts required by its parasitic lifecycle.
Pfizer is working on a pill to treat the disease. Stories about it indicate it might be ready by the end of the year. If that happens then we’ll have a vaccine for those of us who don’t want the disease and a treatment for those who wont get vaccinated.
https://www.health.com/condition/infectious-diseases/coronavirus/pfizer-pill-to-treat-covid-19
Great. Except that it won't stop the virus from mutating in the millions of unvaccinated people, constantly recombining its DNA until it finds itself a variant that doesn't respond to treatment or vaccine. Then we'll all be back at square one again with masks, lockdowns, etc. Thanks again, Real Americans.
The Antivaxxx, who reject medicine in the way of inoculation, will suddenly embrace medicine in pill form?
Yes, because anti-vaxxers have never been logically consistent. They're convinced all manner of long-term harm is being smuggled though vaccines, yet will happily ingest any other pharmaceutical you hand them no questions asked... those chemicals don't count.
I'm not saying that vaccinations will follow the straight trendline I've shown. I'm only saying that if they do, we'll end up with a total of about 320 million jabs by the end of June. That's 160 million people fully vaccinated, or a bit less than 60% of the eligible population.
The number of "at least one shot" persons will likely come in a bit higher than that (even on current trend) since some of those 320 million will be first jab only people. Also some of theme will be Johnson and Johnson recipients. Also, I doubt the trendline will continue to decline on the current slope because of incentive calculus (lotteries, travel restrictions for the unvaccinated, vaccine requirements for the coming school year, etc) and because of the existence of millions of teenagers who only just became eligible.
I'd also imagine the country should realistically be "equipped" with another ten points or so of natural immunity because of people infected (at any given time) within the last six months.
But sure, being on the cup of herd immunity by July 1st doesn't look to be in the cards. I'm thinking by November 1st, though, we'll be in pretty good shape.
I also wanted to point out that the J&J vaccine is only one shot so without a breakdown of how many of the J&Js have been given versus Phizer and Moderna, we can't say how many people have been fully vaxxed. According to this article https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/johnson-johnson-vaccine-linked-28-cases-blood-clots-cdc-reports-n1267128, as of May 12th, more than 8.7 million people have received J&J. That's a relatively small number but is also three weeks old.
There’s a somewhat curmudgeonly meteorology professor at the University of Washington, Cliff Mass, who vehemently makes a case that if you add vaccinated people to a model of people who’ve already had COVID you get herd immunity.
As a meteorologist he’s definitely got a grip on statistics, and he’s at least proposed a hypothesis and claims a count-by-county test validates it.
If he’s right then it may be ok that we don’t all get shots. Not great, maybe, but at least ok.
I think he’s probably right. I certainly hope he is. If he is then we’ll see declines that continue to fit his model. If he’s wrong, of course, we’ll see that. We should have a better idea in a couple of weeks.
You might enjoy playing with his charts and/or assumptions
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/05/covid-is-collapsing-in-washington-state.html?m=1
Cliff is a favorite of climate deniers, so watch it -- he could well be wrong.
Meh. I find him barely tolerable any time he goes out of his lane but anyone who mistakes him for a climate denier is a bumpkin… which probably explains why so many climate deniers like him. 😂
He's not a denier, he's more of a climate both-sides-er.
"Oh why can't these alarmist climate activists get every detail of the science exactly right!"
And then he writes a blog about how we need the awful useless state to work on a comprehensive forest management plan... completely ignorant that and brand spanking new one which hit every point he was concerned about and many more had just been finalized few months before, after years of public work.
I'm really not inclined to give him any credibility on a politically charged issue that is way outside his expertise when he's so bad on one directly adjacent.
Btw, Mass lives just a mile or two from me. This zip code is 84% 12+ vaccinated now. The
city is over 70%, the county is 69% 12+ vaccinated. The University he works at is requiring students to be vaccinated for the fall.
And I think the more interesting story is that. As is often the case in the US, it's not equally distributed.
Lots of parts of the US already hit 70% of adults, others will never do it.
Maybe there is some convenient alignment where the less vaccinated areas are also less dense and that will mitigate it?
Also, it has become increasingly clear that natural immunity is not as a effective against variants as vaccine induced immunity. For example the mRNA vaccines are still fairly effective against the P.1 variant circulating in South America while natural immunity induced by the wild strain does not seem to be protective against reinfection by the P.1 strain.
It’s also very true that natural antibodies for Covid aren’t as effective as the vaccines — the mRNA vaccines in particular.
So the folks who were praying for “natural herd immunity” are also bumpkins. Also callous a**holes who are indifferent to the prospect of millions of deaths!
But in the early days epidemiologists where hoping for a vaccine with even 60% efficacy because that could have made a difference. We’re lucky that even “bad” vaccines are better than that.
And it’s likely that “naturally” acquired immunity combined with proper vaccinations can push things out of the pandemic category.
Note: I should have said earlier that I agree 100% with Kevin that pulling out all the stops, from free beer to lotto tickets to harsher incentives, are all good, appropriate responses.
> pulling out all the stops
My doctor still hasn't called me to ask if I've gotten the vaccine yet.
In Virginia the health departments will be calling all individuals who got a first shot of Pfizer or Moderna but failed to show up for a second shot to try to coax them in for the second shot.
If he’s right then it may be ok that we don’t all get shots. Not great, maybe, but at least ok
I'm not familiar with this person's work, but of course the proposition that "some" non-vaccinated persons have covid19 antibodies is correct. The question is what are the levels -- and this partly depends on how quickly and thoroughly immunity fades. So, sure, we don't "all" need to get shots (I don't think anybody ever maintained we have to get to 100% antibody presence in the population for herd immunity to kick in: not even measles is like that). But this question is surely being studied by the epidemiological community, and, my reading of the tea leaves suggests they don't think "natural" immunity is going to be any kind of white knight. But could it give us that last ten points or so to get us over the line? Here's to hoping!
I'd also note Washington State has consistently been one of the best performers at fighting the pandemic. I'd imagine coronavirus endemicity is lower than the national average (which is bad for natural immunity, but means the reservoir of potential human infectors is smaller). I'd also be willing to bet mask-wearing and general social distancing is stronger there than in most of the country, as well as vaccination levels.
Anyway, the initial "collapse" of covid in the US, I reckon, is surely likely to occur in states like Washington (California, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Maryland) initially. So no surprises.
(Also, this isn't purely speculative on my part, as I rode out a good portion of my pandemic -- when I was unable to get back to Asia -- at sundry Airbnb's in Seattle).
Just think: we could have had a Washington State response to the Rona on a nationwide basis had the Yung Guevarista Green New Deal floggers embraced the only 2019-20 primary candidate with an explicitly ecology centered platform rather than Bernie "Sierra Blanca" Sanders.
I like Inslee, but he wouldn't have taken office until 2021!
Ya, no chance of that happening. Vaccination is clear path to herd immunity. Leaving it upto natural infections means it just keeps on going on. 30-40% of the population is a big pool, always new people to infect.
Just to be clear, neither Mass nor I are arguing in favor of “natural” immunity over vaccination.
There’s a big difference between saying “residual antibodies” may help make bridge the 10-20% gap vs “vaccinations aren’t necessary!” Because yeah, vaccines really are necessary!
"…people who’ve already had COVID you get herd immunity."
No, Cliff is wrong. It has been proven over and over that just because one has had COVID does not necessarily confer future immunity. One may have lessor symptoms but you will still have the capability to infect others. I am inclined to believe that many, including Cliff have little to no idea what "herd immunity" is.
I think one key is to stop focusing so much on the anti-vaccine people and the Trumpkins. I think we need instead to reach out to people who are hesitant but persuadable or who worry about the cost or about taking a day or more off of work. These are people who are reachable, especially is we help them to overcome the obstacles.
At the same time, it’s glaringly obvious that the Biden administration should never have ruled out vaccine passports. This is the only way that anyone can feel safe and it’s the only way to safely get rid of the masks. This needs to be a top priority, both as a way of facilitating a safe reopening and to encourage people to get vaccinated.
Well, it probably doesn't matter whether we get to "herd immunity" or not for the long-run picture. Covid-19 will become an endemic disease either way.
While it is still to early to be sure, it seems likely that vaccine-induced immunity will decline with time and boosters will be required (even if no variants that evade the vaccine-induced antibodies emerge). So we will be in a position of having to periodically revaccinate people to maintain herd immunity. Nobody knows how long the interval between boosters needs to be, but based on other coronaviruses in humans and animals, a yearly booster is not at all unlikely. Getting 80% (or whatever the threshold actually is) of people to do this is an even heavier left than getting the initial vaccines into people's arms. I cannot persuade myself that it's going to happen.
Meanwhile, look at the rest of the world. There are countries still at 0% and many are in the single digits. It's not like we are walled off from the infections there. Unless we plan to almost entirely seal our borders and do serious quarantine enforcement on the few we allow in, we will constantly re-import cases from abroad.
If the world as a whole reaches the magic number, 80% or what ever it is, well then, that might be a different story. But, frankly, that doesn't look to me like it will ever happen.
This. One can imagine an individual country (Israel's probably not far off already) getting to herd immunity. But unless states are willing to maintain highly strict testing/quarantining standards in place indefinitely, it's hard to see how they maintain that status in perpetuity. Maybe in 3 years we can get the entire planet vaccinated, but by that time covid will have long evolved into a regular, seasonal threat requiring updated vaccines, as in the case of influenza. I expect some of the coronavirus-induced common colds that affect our species started out as deadly pandemics, too, in the distant past.
Because measles and polio and smallpox evolved into regular, seasonal threats requiring updated vaccines...
Not sure your point. Are you suggesting the novel coronavirus isn't likely to take the evolutionary path of common cold coronavirues or influenza, but is instead likely to behave like polio or smallpox?
Measles, polio and smallpox aren't coronaviruses. You do know that not all viruses are the same, right? Some classes of viruses mutate faster than others, some become airborne while others require touch to spread while still others require contact with bodily fluids to spread, etc. Our species' experience with measles, polio, smallpox, etc. was very different than our species' experience with HIV, Ebola, etc., which in turn was very different than our species' experience with the flu, SARS, or now Covid.
Expecting treatments of all viruses to be the same is like expecting treatments of all insect bites to be the same... very naive regarding the sheer diversity of viruses or insects that are out there.
Should be noted that SARS1 and MERS both have long lasting immune responses, both active even today. While they are not the same as SARS2, they are closest we have studied longer term. Nothing is definite but better this good news than bad.
You should look at first doses and not doses. That chart largely shows the natural result of a peak that’s behind us. First doses have been holding fairly steady in the 700-750k per day range for a week or so. The question is how long will that hold up.
Now the CDC's "easing" of guidelines makes sense; they're enticing folks to roll up their sleeves. This is my opinion, such as it is.
I think you're right. I also wonder if they feared high levels of masking in a vaccine-hesitancy phase (when most non refuseniks have already been jabbed) impede the expansion of natural herd immunity. In other words, maybe we're now getting a little bit of the Swedish strategy, although no one's admitting it. Wouldn't necessarily be the most unreasonable course of action, given the fact that the main burden of "natural" antibody acquisition will fall on those unwilling to get jabbed.
Notice the timing also. Raffles and lotteries and cash all to get chubby American arms bared. Then the CDC made the call as the slowdown continued.
As for the unwilling - maybe it's just apathy and a little conditioning. I mean most folks just spent a year having tacos delivered to their gobs, why can't mah shot be delivered to me?
There was an article in the SF Chronicle a week or so ago showing the distribution of vaccines in the US. It is very uneven. Not surprisingly the Red states are under vaccinated and Blue states have higher vaccination rates. In the Bay Area well over 60% are fully vaccinated.
It looks like we'll wind up with islands of highly vaccinated populations. Not sure how that will play out. If there are subsequent "waves" or attacks from variants they will likely be stronger in the unvaccinated areas.
When the time comes (it's early yet) I'd like to think at the margins the realization that vaccinated people aren't dying and unvaccinated people are dying will push refusenicks into the camp of reason. But I'm not holding my breath.
Midgard would tell us that's Republicans in Blue States picking up the slack for nonwhite Democrats.
Yes, I think this is the bigger concern. We will get to 70-75% nationwide by the end of summer. With another 10% or more having been infected but not vaccinated. But some areas will have 80% of people vaccinated and others will be only 55%.
Then in the fall young children will get emergency authorization. That’s the silver lining...I think cases will drop pretty far with the level of vaccination we have now and the young kids will put us over the top.
It’s not dangerous. Who’s getting sick? Who’s in the hospital? Who died this past week? No one cares. No one even notices anymore. The pandemic is over.
Nursing home residents, considered among the most vulnerable to Covid-19, appear to receive significant protection from vaccination, according to new research published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
In a letter to the editor, the researchers said that the use of vaccinations also appeared to protect nursing home residents who did not get the immunization. That finding suggests, researchers said, that unvaccinated residents benefit when others around them receive the shot.
“These findings show the real world effectiveness” of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines “in a vulnerable nursing home population,” the researchers wrote.
Employers might start to require vaccinations too.
Already happening. Delta Airlines made an announcement a few days ago. Sundry hospitals and schools have announced such policies, too.
Delta thought they had trouble with the Georgia legi when they were cowed by The Wokes & battered the new Georgia voting law. Well, they ain't seen nothin' like what will come with a private employer vaxxx mandate.
I think the way we warehouse old people in this country is a scandal.
Colleges will be requiring vaccinations for students next fall, and probably some high schools.
Employers might start to require vaccinations too.
The shift of vaccinations from large sites to community and outreached based vaccinations means lower rates but hopefully they will be getting vaccinations to vulnerable communities.
Right now, twenty states plus DC are above 50% vaccinated (first dose)--but we still have three states below 35% and 11 below 40%.
Percent of population vaccinated (first dose) per day:
Bottom three: ca. 0.10%; days to 60% vaccinated: 260 days
TX: ca. 0.20%; 93 days
IL: ca. 0.25%. 36 days
Incorrect. Total jabs will be at 70% for 18+ by July. Sounds good to me. Any future clusters won't bother the hospitals, let am die.
It's why northern white populists in the rust belt need to grab the party, throw out McGovern Republicans and their black allies.
You sound like a bunch of wimps.
Mc Govern Republicans = Reagan Democrats?
Wish I would have come up with that. Or even if velociryx had.
Two thoughts:
1. Graph the cumulative doses administered to get a better picture of the (national) level that we're peaking at.
2. Spend less time looking at national-level data and more time looking at the county-level and state-level data -- https://bityl.co/6vbf -- to see where the next waves will be coming from. Hint: SEC and Big-12 country. In Oregon, the county with the lowest percentage of fully vaccinated residents is Lake, at 26% -- a rural county with ~8K residents. In Georgia, only five counties (out of 159) have a higher percentage of fully vaccinated residents than Lake County, OR.
1) You aren't counting the J&J vaccine. 320 million jabs includes something like 10 million J&J jabs, so 165 million vaccinated.
2) You aren't counting those already infected. Give or take, it looks like about 20% of the population has been infected. If many people who got infected didn't bother getting the vaccine, that's going to make the numbers look a lot better.
3) You aren't counting people who didn't come back for the second shot. Data from Britain strongly suggests that one dose of Pfizer or Moderna helps a lot.
4) No, lotteries, donuts, and beer are not the answer. The answer is to have doctors (or the corporations they work for) call up their patients and schedule an appointment for those unvaccinated. Not only make it super easy to get vaccinated, but get the health expert people trust most to push the vaccine.
No, lotteries, donuts, and beer are not the answer.
They might be part of the answer. We should try everything.
Overworked primary care doctors do NOT have the bandwidth to call patients.
Give or take, it looks like about 20% of the population has been infected. If many people who got infected didn't bother getting the vaccine, that's going to make the numbers look a lot better.
We're going to get some help from this source, but your "give and take" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. If, say, your 20% is only 17% AND half the infected people have lost the bulk of their immunity AND new variants are more infectious AND the remaining 8.5% isn't an "on net" figure (because some of them have gotten vaccinated), this addition to herd immunity could be very small. I'd love to think we'll get a ten point bump in herd immunity from the already-infected, but I think it's far from clear the number will be even that high.
(But sure, every little bit helps).
There's an effing surprise: the percentage of unvaccinated roughly equals the percentage of Trumpies. People so angry and baffled that all they want to do is make sure everyone else suffers too.
This is the United States of Stupid. There's no way we ever get to 80%. 70% is a maybe but doubtful. If there's a fall wave of infections, then maybe there will be a resurgence in vaccination. But Stupid is a chronic and sometimes fatal disease without a known cure.
"This is the United States of Stupid. "
This is true. And contrary to the popular opinion in this particular echo chamber, that isn't limited to white trash Southron trumpers. Recall, for example, the wonderous displays of home fireworks, see from the air, that we so over Los Angeles on July 4, 2020. I'm guessing that there weren't a lot of masks, or a lot of Trump voters, at those large family gatherings. Or the famous South (Central) toddler party.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRVvMoEoItU&t=1s