Sep 13, 2023 06:18 PM
(This post was last modified: Sep 13, 2023 06:42 PM by C C.)
The Freedom to Harm
https://pauloffit.substack.com/p/the-freedom-to-harm
INTRO: Anti-vaccine activists often argue, “What do you care whether I get a vaccine? You’re vaccinated. You’re protected.” This statement makes two false assumptions. First, that vaccines are 100 percent effective, which is true of no vaccine; even people who are vaccinated are at some risk of disease. Second, not everyone can be vaccinated successfully. This last point was made clear by an event in California... (MORE - details)
When did “herd immunity” become a taboo phrase?
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/when-di...oo-phrase/
EXCERPTS: An article from Johns Hopkins University describes herd immunity as: "When most of a population is immune to an infectious disease, this provides indirect protection – or population immunity (also called herd immunity or herd protection) – to those who are not immune to the disease."
The article gives examples of measles, mumps, polio, and chickenpox as diseases for which herd immunity exists in the U.S. Outbreaks of these diseases can still occur in pockets of unvaccinated people, but due to herd immunity, they fade away and don’t spiral out of control. If we had herd immunity to COVID, there would still be sporadic, limited outbreaks here and there, but no sustained transmission of the virus.
We do not have herd immunity to COVID.
With this definition of herd immunity in mind, let’s flashback to May 27th, 2021. On that day, two of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) [...] published an overly optimistic article titled It’s Mad That ‘Herd Immunity’ Was Ever a Taboo Phrase...
As with everything from these doctors, this aged poorly. COVID’s death toll in the USA was 589,000 at the time, and immune-evading variants have since killed nearly 600,000 more Americans and sickened many millions more. Moreover, the last remnants of “lockdown” were going away forever when the piece was published.
However, the title- It’s Mad That ‘Herd Immunity’ Was Ever a Taboo Phrase– is worth discussing. In one sense, it was as wrong as the content of the article. However, in another sense it was just ahead of its time.
[...] The title was wrong in that herd immunity wasn’t a taboo phrase in 2020 and 2021. In fact, many doctors, most of whom lacked real-world responsibility for treating COVID patients, discussed herd immunity all the time...
[...] The title was ahead of its time in that after 2021, mentions of herd immunity essentially stopped. The few doctors who mentioned herd immunity after this, did so only to absurdly redefine the term to make it seem as they had been right all along. Blatantly contradicting what [...they had written earlier...]
[...] most doctors who spoke ceaselessly about herd immunity in 2020 and 2021, refuse to do so today. In fact, they act as if they had never mentioned herd immunity at all...
[...] And thus it becomes clear, doctors who previously mocked and berated those who supposedly treated herd immunity as a taboo phrase, now treat herd immunity, as they defined it in 2021, as a taboo phrase. As cases and hospitalizations rise once again, I wonder why that is... (MORE - missing details)
https://pauloffit.substack.com/p/the-freedom-to-harm
INTRO: Anti-vaccine activists often argue, “What do you care whether I get a vaccine? You’re vaccinated. You’re protected.” This statement makes two false assumptions. First, that vaccines are 100 percent effective, which is true of no vaccine; even people who are vaccinated are at some risk of disease. Second, not everyone can be vaccinated successfully. This last point was made clear by an event in California... (MORE - details)
When did “herd immunity” become a taboo phrase?
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/when-di...oo-phrase/
EXCERPTS: An article from Johns Hopkins University describes herd immunity as: "When most of a population is immune to an infectious disease, this provides indirect protection – or population immunity (also called herd immunity or herd protection) – to those who are not immune to the disease."
The article gives examples of measles, mumps, polio, and chickenpox as diseases for which herd immunity exists in the U.S. Outbreaks of these diseases can still occur in pockets of unvaccinated people, but due to herd immunity, they fade away and don’t spiral out of control. If we had herd immunity to COVID, there would still be sporadic, limited outbreaks here and there, but no sustained transmission of the virus.
We do not have herd immunity to COVID.
With this definition of herd immunity in mind, let’s flashback to May 27th, 2021. On that day, two of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) [...] published an overly optimistic article titled It’s Mad That ‘Herd Immunity’ Was Ever a Taboo Phrase...
As with everything from these doctors, this aged poorly. COVID’s death toll in the USA was 589,000 at the time, and immune-evading variants have since killed nearly 600,000 more Americans and sickened many millions more. Moreover, the last remnants of “lockdown” were going away forever when the piece was published.
However, the title- It’s Mad That ‘Herd Immunity’ Was Ever a Taboo Phrase– is worth discussing. In one sense, it was as wrong as the content of the article. However, in another sense it was just ahead of its time.
[...] The title was wrong in that herd immunity wasn’t a taboo phrase in 2020 and 2021. In fact, many doctors, most of whom lacked real-world responsibility for treating COVID patients, discussed herd immunity all the time...
[...] The title was ahead of its time in that after 2021, mentions of herd immunity essentially stopped. The few doctors who mentioned herd immunity after this, did so only to absurdly redefine the term to make it seem as they had been right all along. Blatantly contradicting what [...they had written earlier...]
[...] most doctors who spoke ceaselessly about herd immunity in 2020 and 2021, refuse to do so today. In fact, they act as if they had never mentioned herd immunity at all...
[...] And thus it becomes clear, doctors who previously mocked and berated those who supposedly treated herd immunity as a taboo phrase, now treat herd immunity, as they defined it in 2021, as a taboo phrase. As cases and hospitalizations rise once again, I wonder why that is... (MORE - missing details)