RE: Are lockdowns justified?
April 13, 2021 at 5:20 pm
(This post was last modified: April 13, 2021 at 6:35 pm by BrianSoddingBoru4.)
(Didn’t want to quote all that mess)
FA points out that the low end of the vaccines’ effectiveness is 68% and the high end is 95% and questions whether this will be enough to end the pandemic.
His numbers give a median value of around 80%. This is significantly higher that the number of infected/recovered people to establish herd immunity (generally stated as about 70%). So, the answer seems to be ‘yes’. Inoculating 70% of a population with a vaccine that is 80% effective will be enough to end the pandemic.
As to the inevitable objection, ‘Why don’t we wait for herd immunity to kick in on its own?’, it’s worth noting that smallpox killed at least 300 million people (possibly as many as 500 million) in the 20th century alone. Herd immunity never kicked in. Smallpox was stopped by ...wait for it...an aggressive vaccine inoculation programme.
Boru
FA points out that the low end of the vaccines’ effectiveness is 68% and the high end is 95% and questions whether this will be enough to end the pandemic.
His numbers give a median value of around 80%. This is significantly higher that the number of infected/recovered people to establish herd immunity (generally stated as about 70%). So, the answer seems to be ‘yes’. Inoculating 70% of a population with a vaccine that is 80% effective will be enough to end the pandemic.
As to the inevitable objection, ‘Why don’t we wait for herd immunity to kick in on its own?’, it’s worth noting that smallpox killed at least 300 million people (possibly as many as 500 million) in the 20th century alone. Herd immunity never kicked in. Smallpox was stopped by ...wait for it...an aggressive vaccine inoculation programme.
Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson