Even vaccinating 100 percent of the population with Pfizer's 95% effective shot (green) would leave the transmission rate of the 'super-covid' variant from the UK above zero, while less effective shots like Oxford's (red and blue) would fail to drive the R number below 1, at which point the pandemic would be considered 'stable'
* Higher transmission rate of the UK 'super-covid' variant could drive up the number of people who need to be vaccinated in order for a population to reach herd immunity
* US health officials say between 75% and 90% of the population need to be vaccinated for US herd immunity
* Vaccines are not 100% effective, so a more infectious variant could spread more quickly from people who got a less effective shot that did not work
* University of East Anglia researchers estimate that the new UK variant raises the R number, or transmission rate by about 56%
* At that rate, 80% of the US population needs to get Moderna's or Pfizer's shot for the pandmeic to be stable
* But even vaccinating 100% of the population, including kids, would not drive transmission down to zero
* Vaccinating even 100% of the population with Oxford's 70% effective shot could not drive transmission of the new variant that is already dominant there down to one - the 'stable' threshold
* Only 5.2% of the US population has gotten a first dose of coronavirus vaccine; President Biden aims for 100 million vaccinations in 100 days
Even vaccinating 100 percent of the population may not be enough to eradicate COVID-19 once 'super-covid' variants become dominant in the US, a new study suggests.
The emergence of more infectious variants means that each new case could lead to a greater number of additional cases.
As a result, vaccines - even the most effective ones - may not be able to outpace the rate of transmission.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: I am confident that with time this pandemic will burn itself out. But the above post outlines a nightmare scenario that we all better hope does not happen.
4 comments:
The human race has survived much much worse epidemics. At the least we'll survive this one. Until the mortality rate reaches 15% this one is not the end.
Black death wad 33% to 50%,,.
Covid is 5% max and only for people over 65 or 70.
Covid is a hill built up into Mount Everest.
I think Covid may just become the new seasonal flu, the vaccine will help, but ultimately it will stick around and mutate. With any luck it will mutate towards a less deadly variant, new treatments, updated vaccines and lifestyle adjustments and we will carry on.
Every year people get c4 to 6 colds. Every year about 1 in 6 of those colds are COVID. Unless there is some pressure causing the code of an organism or a virus to conserve it genes, they mutate. What is the mutation rate? How big is the pool of COVID viruses mutating?
I would have thought this particular combination of genes has been hit upon before several times in the past century or past 3 decades.
The re is nothing new under the sun. We have seen this genetic code before. We could not sequence the genes before. We did not have the internet before. We were not as fat before. We did not have as many old people before. We did not have leaders and chieftans using DNA technology as an excuse to lead us for our own good and enforce their will.
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