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How Herd Immunity Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff. You should know a production of My
0:03
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
0:12
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryan over there,
0:16
Speaker 1: and uh, it's just the two of us again. But
0:19
Speaker 1: I'm getting used to it. How about you? I am.
0:23
Speaker 1: I am sweating in our studio by myself, Like you're
0:27
Speaker 1: nervous now. I'm hot because the studio is hot and
0:32
Speaker 1: you know, I know we've been buzz marketing enough, but
0:35
Speaker 1: the internet is only working in our studio for some reason.
0:40
Speaker 1: And uh, I ate some of that spicy beef ramen
0:43
Speaker 1: in this hot room. Yeah, that's a dangerous combo. I
0:49
Speaker 1: didn't think to open the door, So I'm just like
0:51
Speaker 1: sitting here pouring sweat out everywhere. Well here's the thing.
0:55
Speaker 1: You could go totally dong out like Spartacus if you
0:58
Speaker 1: wanted to, because you're the only one there. People have
1:01
Speaker 1: been talking about dong out lately. To the movie crush page. Yeah,
1:04
Speaker 1: well it's a pretty hilarious term. But just please put down,
1:07
Speaker 1: like some newspaper or something on the chair before you
1:11
Speaker 1: sit on the bare bottomed Okay. Oh, and by the way,
1:14
Speaker 1: speaking of movie crush, you. I think this is going
1:18
Speaker 1: to come out the day after your movie Crush Mini
1:21
Speaker 1: Crush appearance next week. Yeah, I'm excited about it. Man,
1:25
Speaker 1: I'm a little nervous. So No, it's gonna be great.
1:27
Speaker 1: People are gonna love it. So if you don't listen
1:29
Speaker 1: to the show, maybe listen to this one episode and
1:32
Speaker 1: then forget about the show again. If you want always
1:37
Speaker 1: stick around, maybe boost the numbers a tad. But it
1:40
Speaker 1: was a lot of fun, and I think I think
1:43
Speaker 1: people would want to hear your appearances. What I really
1:45
Speaker 1: appreciated you having me on it was it was a
1:49
Speaker 1: lot of fun. It was fun professional at hosting. Hey,
1:53
Speaker 1: we turns out we know what we're doing here, don't
1:56
Speaker 1: we don't? Uh? Speaking of which, I think we should
2:01
Speaker 1: frontload this episode with a little bit of a c
2:03
Speaker 1: o A Um. If you are a pretty hard line
2:08
Speaker 1: anti vaxer, or if you believe in things like planned
2:13
Speaker 1: demmi or that Bill Gates created the coronavirus for population control,
2:19
Speaker 1: you may not want to listen to this because we're
2:21
Speaker 1: gonna bring you hard and leaned facts, lean and mean,
2:26
Speaker 1: depending on your point of view. I think that's a
2:28
Speaker 1: good It's a good c O a. I think that
2:31
Speaker 1: maybe you got rid of two of the hate mail
2:35
Speaker 1: we're gonna get, so thank you for that. Yeah, we'll see.
2:38
Speaker 1: I mean I think, uh, it just bears saying, just why, why,
2:42
Speaker 1: why rile yourself all up? Just let's listen to your
2:46
Speaker 1: echo chamber podcasts that validate what you think maybe or
2:50
Speaker 1: or or or or calm down and just hear us
2:55
Speaker 1: out and see what you think. Well, that's always a
2:58
Speaker 1: you know, it's always an option. You know. So we're
3:02
Speaker 1: not even talking necessarily just about vaccines or anti vaccines. Um,
3:08
Speaker 1: it's almost like a side thing to this whole thing,
3:11
Speaker 1: but it's definitely still, um, very much intertwined with it. Um,
3:17
Speaker 1: we're talking about her can't or you can't not talk
3:21
Speaker 1: about vaccines if you're going to talk about her immunity
3:24
Speaker 1: right now, because with with her immunity, especially in the
3:28
Speaker 1: twenty one century, there's basically two ways of getting there,
3:31
Speaker 1: and one of them is a robust vaccination program. That's right.
3:37
Speaker 1: And if you don't know what her immunity is, then um,
3:40
Speaker 1: then you're probably just fine. You've been living under a
3:42
Speaker 1: rock and you're not near any other humans or the internet.
3:45
Speaker 1: You're still protected though that's right. Herd immunity those the
3:48
Speaker 1: principle uh, sort of in its simplest form of safety
3:52
Speaker 1: and numbers and if you have a lot of people
3:55
Speaker 1: or enough people, because there's actual math involved to figuring
3:58
Speaker 1: that out. It's not just a guess. If you have
4:00
Speaker 1: enough people that are immune to a virus. Uh. And
4:04
Speaker 1: it can be like you said, through vaccination or through
4:07
Speaker 1: having lived through the disease and then having antibodies, then
4:11
Speaker 1: the population is protected from that disease even if they
4:17
Speaker 1: are an immune. That's that's the idea that so many
4:20
Speaker 1: a certain threshold of people are immune that even people
4:23
Speaker 1: that choose not to vaccinate can hop on that wagon, right. Um.
4:28
Speaker 1: And it's not even like you hop on the wagon,
4:30
Speaker 1: like you are on the wagon just by vulture being
4:34
Speaker 1: alive in the society or culture. Right. So that's a
4:36
Speaker 1: good point. Um. There's a really easy way of understanding
4:39
Speaker 1: it that Molly Edmonds used in Um the House Stuff
4:44
Speaker 1: Works episode Unheard Immunity that if you pretend you're at
4:47
Speaker 1: a bowling alley and each person has their own lane,
4:50
Speaker 1: and this is basically that bowling alley lane is like
4:53
Speaker 1: there their bubble that they live in, their work their
4:57
Speaker 1: home and everything, and they don't encounter anybody else. That's
5:00
Speaker 1: kind of like Wally, But with bowling. If the first
5:03
Speaker 1: person on lane one comes down with say the flu um,
5:08
Speaker 1: he can very easily pass it on to the woman
5:11
Speaker 1: in lane two. If she's not immune to the flu,
5:14
Speaker 1: she will contract it and pass it on to the
5:16
Speaker 1: person in lane three, and so on and so forth,
5:18
Speaker 1: and it'll just keep going and eventually people will develop anybodies.
5:23
Speaker 1: Some of those people will die, most will survive, uh,
5:26
Speaker 1: and the flu will have a hard time getting through
5:28
Speaker 1: that population a second time around. But if the woman
5:33
Speaker 1: in lane two is already immunized to that flu strain,
5:37
Speaker 1: say through like a vaccine or something, then it's not
5:40
Speaker 1: going to transmit from the first guy in lane one
5:44
Speaker 1: to her, or it's certainly not going to transmit beyond her.
5:47
Speaker 1: So she's protected everybody in lanes three through ten just
5:51
Speaker 1: by virtue of having been immune to that flu virus.
5:55
Speaker 1: It's stopped with her, and that's the point of her immunity.
5:59
Speaker 1: That's the whole that's the basis of the whole thing. Yeah,
6:03
Speaker 1: And if we want to stick with bowling parlance, then
6:05
Speaker 1: that means that that lady is bowling strikes. She's throwing
6:07
Speaker 1: strikes strikes, not even seven ten splits, which she could
6:11
Speaker 1: if she wanted to. That's how she is. Yeah, the
6:14
Speaker 1: perfect game, right. I remember that dumb joke when I
6:18
Speaker 1: was a little about You know, you learn the stupidest
6:20
Speaker 1: jokes when you're a kid because they have to be
6:22
Speaker 1: so dumb. A kid can understand him, I think, I
6:24
Speaker 1: think so. But about the the guy who bowled a
6:27
Speaker 1: three hundred and one and you're like, you can't bowl
6:29
Speaker 1: a three d and one, Well, you can't bowl a
6:32
Speaker 1: three hundred and lose, man. I know. That's how bad
6:38
Speaker 1: it was, and that's how much it stuck with me.
6:39
Speaker 1: Did you get that from highlights? I don't know where
6:43
Speaker 1: I got that. It's pretty bad. It sounds like a
6:45
Speaker 1: playground joke. I think so. But I think you beat
6:48
Speaker 1: up in the playground even with that one. Yeah. So
6:52
Speaker 1: let's talk about her community some more. We talked about
6:55
Speaker 1: the two ways natural exposure and vaccinations, and if we're
7:00
Speaker 1: going back pre vaccination and talking about human history. Um,
7:04
Speaker 1: the hurt there was hert immunity, and it was I
7:06
Speaker 1: guess the way to describe it as herd immunity. The
7:09
Speaker 1: hard way. Um, people being exposed to the virus or
7:13
Speaker 1: the bacteria developing that immune response and enough, you know,
7:17
Speaker 1: they reached that tipping point where enough people have it
7:19
Speaker 1: to where everyone's immune. But they lost a lot of
7:22
Speaker 1: people along the way. Yeah, that's part of the problem
7:24
Speaker 1: is is if you look at it on an individual level,
7:26
Speaker 1: if you are exposed to a virus or a bacterium
7:30
Speaker 1: and it runs rampant and infects you when you come
7:33
Speaker 1: down with an illness from it, you there's basically two outcomes.
7:38
Speaker 1: You can put it up, put up an immune response
7:41
Speaker 1: and win, or you can lose and die. But if
7:44
Speaker 1: you survive and win, you've become immunized. And that's just
7:48
Speaker 1: the natural course of viruses or bacteria when they encounter humans.
7:52
Speaker 1: It's at least contagious ones infectious ones, right, um. And
7:56
Speaker 1: and we didn't have any recourse other than that. So
7:59
Speaker 1: it's actually kind of good that we do have this
8:02
Speaker 1: natural immune response to I mean, we just wouldn't be
8:06
Speaker 1: around anymore if we didn't have. Its. Part and parcel
8:08
Speaker 1: with human survival or any biological survival is to be
8:11
Speaker 1: able to mount in immune response, build antibodies so that
8:15
Speaker 1: if you do encounter this thing again. You don't have
8:17
Speaker 1: to go through the illness all over again for the
8:19
Speaker 1: most part. But like, we didn't have any other tools
8:24
Speaker 1: besides that until the nineteen forties when we were able
8:28
Speaker 1: to mass manufacture vaccines, and now all of a sudden,
8:32
Speaker 1: we could say, create herd immunity without anybody ever having
8:36
Speaker 1: to get sick or almost anybody, um, just through vaccination
8:42
Speaker 1: vaccination programs. Yeah, and here's the deal to uh. In
8:47
Speaker 1: you know, pre vaccination, they could build up an immunity,
8:50
Speaker 1: lose a lot of people on the way, and it
8:52
Speaker 1: wasn't like, all right, now we're fully set forever. Uh.
8:55
Speaker 1: Sometimes there would be like another swell of exposure, whether
8:59
Speaker 1: or not it's like a bunch of people moving into
9:01
Speaker 1: the country or a bunch of people being born, but
9:04
Speaker 1: basically non immune people kind of flooding the system. And
9:08
Speaker 1: then that percentage point that we're going to talk about
9:11
Speaker 1: dips below that number, and then you kind of you
9:13
Speaker 1: don't have to restart the whole process, but it kind
9:16
Speaker 1: of that hamster wheel gets going again until that herd
9:18
Speaker 1: immunity is then reached again. Yeah. That's I think that's
9:22
Speaker 1: um what's called an endemic disease where it's still they're
9:25
Speaker 1: just hanging in the background. But for the most part,
9:28
Speaker 1: people are immune to it. And then when you have
9:31
Speaker 1: like an influx of births or an influx of immigrants,
9:33
Speaker 1: that can flare up again. But then those people get
9:36
Speaker 1: um kind of taken into the immunized herd, become part
9:40
Speaker 1: of the immunized herd as well. And and the deal
9:42
Speaker 1: is is that natural herd immunity is all we had
9:44
Speaker 1: until we developed kind of the ability to make massive
9:48
Speaker 1: quantities of vaccines, right I think of the starting in
9:51
Speaker 1: the nineteen forties. Yeah, I mean there were a few
9:54
Speaker 1: researchers along the way who really brought this along. There
9:58
Speaker 1: was a couple of people, name a couple of dudes
10:00
Speaker 1: named W. W. C. Topley and G. S. Wilson who
10:05
Speaker 1: actually coined the term um herd immunity. But in ninety three.
10:10
Speaker 1: That was an UH epidemiologist named A. W. Hydrick who
10:15
Speaker 1: studied measles between ninety one and he's the one that
10:19
Speaker 1: actually kind of quantified this and said, I've done the math.
10:23
Speaker 1: If sixty percent of kids fifteen or younger were immune
10:26
Speaker 1: to measles, then we're not going to have a big outbreak,
10:29
Speaker 1: and he wrote a very famous paper about it, and
10:31
Speaker 1: that's where the term really took off. Yeah, and so, um,
10:35
Speaker 1: herd immunity is basically an epidemiological concept. It gets um sometimes,
10:42
Speaker 1: I think in the in the popular press especially, it
10:46
Speaker 1: gets kind of leaned on as if it's like a
10:48
Speaker 1: natural universal law or something like that. It's basically an observation,
10:53
Speaker 1: but one that has seems to be consistently held up
10:56
Speaker 1: by the success of vaccination programs that we've cre aided
11:00
Speaker 1: to generate artificial herd immunity. And that's the point. That's
11:04
Speaker 1: the point of vaccine programs is to say, okay, for
11:10
Speaker 1: for basically all of human history, all we had was
11:13
Speaker 1: that natural herd immunity, whether we liked it or not.
11:16
Speaker 1: But now that we have vaccines, we can create vaccine
11:18
Speaker 1: programs where if we vaccinate enough people, we can force
11:23
Speaker 1: this herd immunity without almost anybody getting sick. Like you
11:28
Speaker 1: might have a slight reaction to the vaccine for a
11:31
Speaker 1: small number of people, usually somewhere around like say three
11:34
Speaker 1: to ten percent, the vaccine is not going to protect you.
11:37
Speaker 1: But if enough people out there get this vaccine, they're
11:40
Speaker 1: going to be vaccinated. Immunized against the disease without ever
11:44
Speaker 1: having gotten it. And if enough people are vaccinated, we
11:48
Speaker 1: will have this herd immunity without having to undergo some
11:51
Speaker 1: disastrous epidemic that kills off some ungodly number of people
11:56
Speaker 1: and makes an even larger number of people sick. That's
11:59
Speaker 1: the basis of vaccines in the vaccination program. And I
12:04
Speaker 1: mean countless tens of millions of lives have been saved
12:08
Speaker 1: just from the fact that they have existed since the
12:10
Speaker 1: nineteen forties. Yeah, I mean that's when they came into
12:14
Speaker 1: mass production in se is, when we first started as humans.
12:19
Speaker 1: To kind of understand this concept, there was a man
12:21
Speaker 1: named Edward Jenner who inoculated a little kid, a little boy,
12:25
Speaker 1: against smallpox. And this is kind of gross sounding, but
12:28
Speaker 1: he infected him with the plus from a blister of
12:32
Speaker 1: cow cow pox, which is less deadly, and he was like, Hey,
12:36
Speaker 1: I think I'm onto something here, and in uh, two
12:40
Speaker 1: hundred and or I guess a hundred and forty something years,
12:44
Speaker 1: we're really going to be on the ball with this stuff, right.
12:46
Speaker 1: And there were others like vaccines along the way, but um,
12:50
Speaker 1: and I think they were all just kind of small batch.
12:53
Speaker 1: You know, like artisan vaccines that were created, um, but
12:58
Speaker 1: the uh, the it was like the forties where this
13:01
Speaker 1: on this mass industrial scale that that they were produced.
13:04
Speaker 1: And only under those circumstances can you actually get to
13:08
Speaker 1: herd immunity for like a large population like a state
13:11
Speaker 1: or a nation or a world. Basically, Yeah, and you know,
13:17
Speaker 1: I think we've said this will kind of keep beating
13:18
Speaker 1: this drum and repeating this, but the whole concept is
13:21
Speaker 1: to protect people who haven't even been vaccinated. Just sometimes
13:27
Speaker 1: you're too young to get vaccinated, Sometimes you have a
13:29
Speaker 1: condition as a child where you literally can't be vaccinated,
13:33
Speaker 1: or maybe you're elderly and you had been vaccinated. But
13:37
Speaker 1: you know, they always talk about, especially with COVID nineteen
13:40
Speaker 1: and and the flu, the elderly population is at risk
13:43
Speaker 1: because they're way more likely to develop complications like uh,
13:48
Speaker 1: pneumonia as a big one for what's going around now,
13:51
Speaker 1: but as far as even something like chicken pox, encephalitis
13:54
Speaker 1: or hepatitis. And we don't really know the deal with
13:58
Speaker 1: children and adults their immune system and exactly how they
14:02
Speaker 1: work and what the differences are, but it looks like
14:05
Speaker 1: kids are either more robust and against something like chicken pox,
14:11
Speaker 1: like when you have it as a kid is usually
14:12
Speaker 1: not such a big deal. When you have it as
14:14
Speaker 1: an adult, it is a big deal because it may
14:16
Speaker 1: be your adult system just going into overdrive saying you
14:19
Speaker 1: should have had this when you were six, Right, what
14:22
Speaker 1: is wrong with you? Didn't you have any friends? Did
14:25
Speaker 1: you have chicken pox? Probably didn't you? I did? I
14:27
Speaker 1: did here. Yeah, my sister always had. She had a
14:30
Speaker 1: pox scar like on her temple that I always admired,
14:33
Speaker 1: so I made sure to like pick one on my temple.
14:37
Speaker 1: I don't think Emily got it for some reason. I'm
14:40
Speaker 1: that is in my brain. Oh my is she? Does
14:42
Speaker 1: she have the vaccine against it? I think so? Okay,
14:45
Speaker 1: because since the mid nineties they came out with a
14:48
Speaker 1: vaccine against ari selah, which is the virus that causes
14:51
Speaker 1: chicken pox, And now it's like you don't have to
14:53
Speaker 1: get it as a kid any anymore. I'm pretty sure
14:56
Speaker 1: somebody I know didn't get it and did get the vaccine,
14:58
Speaker 1: and I'm pretty sure it's right, so pretty well so
15:05
Speaker 1: um so with chicken pox, that's a good example of
15:08
Speaker 1: how like you know, if you haven't when you're a kid,
15:10
Speaker 1: it's I mean, it's still life threatening. You can get
15:12
Speaker 1: all those same things like encephalitis or pneumonia, but you're
15:16
Speaker 1: just way likelier to get it as an adult. Same
15:18
Speaker 1: thing with the flu, Like the flu can be very
15:21
Speaker 1: deadly depending on how old you are. UM, I think
15:26
Speaker 1: something like it says ninety percent of flu related deaths
15:30
Speaker 1: and fifty to seventy percent of hospitalizations for the flu
15:34
Speaker 1: are for people over age sixty five. I mean, so
15:38
Speaker 1: for the same exact strain of a bug that, like
15:41
Speaker 1: you know, has a kid at home watching prices right
15:44
Speaker 1: for one day, maybe two, UM, it lands an older
15:49
Speaker 1: person over age sixty five in the hospital on the
15:51
Speaker 1: brink of death. You know, it's just different. And so
15:54
Speaker 1: because that there is that difference, it makes sense to
15:58
Speaker 1: immunize the young, inoculate the young, to protect the elderly.
16:02
Speaker 1: And let's not forget, even if you couldn't care less
16:05
Speaker 1: about the elderly, you hate the elderly because some old
16:08
Speaker 1: man yelled at you once when you threw a football
16:10
Speaker 1: in his yard, and you've hated all old people ever since.
16:13
Speaker 1: Then do you hate babies because there are there are
16:17
Speaker 1: babies who are too young to be inoculated? And then
16:20
Speaker 1: there's also those people, like you said, who don't have
16:23
Speaker 1: um healthy enough immune systems to get a vaccine, and
16:27
Speaker 1: so they rely on the everybody else the herd to
16:31
Speaker 1: be vaccinated to provide this immunity for them. So there
16:35
Speaker 1: are really good reasons to be vaccinated in addition to
16:39
Speaker 1: you yourself being immunized against these things. Yeah, and you know,
16:45
Speaker 1: these things work better in a homogeneous population. And every
16:48
Speaker 1: time I see that word, I want to say homogeneous
16:51
Speaker 1: for some reason, that's the British way of saying. Do
16:54
Speaker 1: they say that way? They probably do, probably just to
16:56
Speaker 1: be contrarian or contrary Indian. Uh, they work better and
17:03
Speaker 1: homogeneous populations, which there are not a lot of those
17:06
Speaker 1: uh still these days, um, thanks to you know, people
17:09
Speaker 1: integrating with one another. So when they do these calculations
17:13
Speaker 1: that we're about to talk about, they take all of
17:15
Speaker 1: that into account, races, ethnicities, mixed races, stuff like that.
17:21
Speaker 1: And so you know, we've been talking about the modeling
17:23
Speaker 1: and the math involved. It can get complicated, but it's
17:27
Speaker 1: really kind of simple that it's base form, don't you think, yes,
17:31
Speaker 1: especially if you're a mathematical genius in a statistical whiz,
17:34
Speaker 1: which I am not okay, But in the broad strokes, yeah,
17:38
Speaker 1: you you can make a pretty good case that it's
17:39
Speaker 1: understandable for sure that it's it's all based on the
17:43
Speaker 1: reproduction number in relation to the size of the population. Basically, yeah,
17:49
Speaker 1: and that reproduction number they in the in the biz,
17:53
Speaker 1: it's pronounced are not. It's are with a. I guess
17:56
Speaker 1: that's a zero. Huh, yeah, I'd to say our zero
18:00
Speaker 1: any day. Are not though, for an infection, is a
18:04
Speaker 1: number of people expected to contract that illness after coming
18:08
Speaker 1: into contact with an infected person under the right conditions
18:13
Speaker 1: that they can contract it. So a less confusing way
18:16
Speaker 1: of saying that is the are not number is the
18:19
Speaker 1: expected number of people that a contagious person is going
18:22
Speaker 1: to infect. Right, So if you understand this about a disease,
18:26
Speaker 1: if you know um, for example, with the MOMPS that's
18:30
Speaker 1: extremely contagious, which means that it has a high are
18:33
Speaker 1: not because the average person walking around infected with the
18:37
Speaker 1: MOMPS and contagious with the MOMPS is going to get
18:40
Speaker 1: something between ten and twelve other people infected with the
18:44
Speaker 1: MOMPS and then they themselves will be contagious. So that
18:46
Speaker 1: means that the MOMPS has a relatively high are not
18:49
Speaker 1: or reproduction number. So if you understand that about the moms,
18:53
Speaker 1: you can calculate how many people in a population have
18:57
Speaker 1: to be immunized against the momps to to prevent it
19:02
Speaker 1: from transmitting within that population. And, like we said, there's
19:05
Speaker 1: a lot more math to it than that, but ultimately,
19:08
Speaker 1: for the months in today's modern heterogeneous populations, is that
19:14
Speaker 1: the right way of saying. I don't know. Nobody says heterogeneous,
19:17
Speaker 1: do they. That sounds way too close to erotic. It
19:21
Speaker 1: sounds like something I would say, so um uh, in
19:25
Speaker 1: today's modern society, We'll just put it like that, you
19:29
Speaker 1: need to have about of any given population immunized against
19:34
Speaker 1: momps to reach what's called the herd immunity threshold. That
19:39
Speaker 1: herd immunity threshold is basically what I just said. It's
19:42
Speaker 1: the percentage of the population that has to be immunized
19:45
Speaker 1: for her immunity to kick in to cover everybody else. Yeah,
19:49
Speaker 1: and I know that everyone's going, what about COVID, What
19:52
Speaker 1: about COVID? What about COVID? Oh? Do you want to
19:55
Speaker 1: not even say yet? You want to wait? Okay, I
19:58
Speaker 1: mean that's fine, that's fine. We'll how about this let's
20:01
Speaker 1: take a break. Oh my god, this is just and
20:03
Speaker 1: then right after the break, we'll we'll dive into this
20:07
Speaker 1: stuff later, but right after the break, we'll give you
20:09
Speaker 1: sort of what they're thinking as of today when we
20:12
Speaker 1: record right after this shosh and shock. All right, So
20:41
Speaker 1: that was an unfair cliffhanger, uh, And keep in mind,
20:46
Speaker 1: like we kind of learned and we knew this was
20:47
Speaker 1: going to happen with our COVID nineteen podcast, it was
20:50
Speaker 1: out of date like days later, and this will be
20:52
Speaker 1: out of date because there's just so much we don't
20:54
Speaker 1: know yet and we're learning so much every day and
20:56
Speaker 1: every week. But I've seen the range from six is
21:02
Speaker 1: what they think the immunity threshold needs to be for
21:05
Speaker 1: UH to have a pretty successful herd immunity, Right, that's
21:10
Speaker 1: the current thinking that I saw as well, that they
21:12
Speaker 1: think the reproduction number is somewhere between two and three.
21:16
Speaker 1: I think that's a two point eight is like the
21:18
Speaker 1: most widely touted for COVID nineteen, thankfully. I mean, can
21:23
Speaker 1: you imagine if it was like a month's level, right, Yeah, No,
21:27
Speaker 1: that's especially with the fact that there's such a thing
21:30
Speaker 1: as asymptomatic carriers who can walk around in fating people.
21:33
Speaker 1: If that was that much more contagious, it would be, Yeah,
21:36
Speaker 1: it would be pretty rotten. Like it as bad as
21:38
Speaker 1: it is, it could conceivably be worse epidemiologically speaking. Yeah,
21:43
Speaker 1: And here's where we should also point out that, just
21:45
Speaker 1: like we're talking about her immunity, but if we reach
21:47
Speaker 1: her immunity, that doesn't mean like everything is solved. Um,
21:52
Speaker 1: if we come up with a vaccine, which we will,
21:54
Speaker 1: vaccines aren't effective against every single human, so things can
22:00
Speaker 1: still happen. Um, And then sometimes you get an immunization
22:05
Speaker 1: that's effective for a short time, for a few years. Maybe. Yeah,
22:08
Speaker 1: there's an outbreak of diphtheria in Russia. I mean, like
22:12
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of people fell ill with diphtheria, and
22:15
Speaker 1: they were almost all adults. And they went back and
22:18
Speaker 1: figured out the reason why this happened was because, um,
22:21
Speaker 1: those adults hadn't been given a booster shot for their
22:24
Speaker 1: diphtheria um inoculation and so so they're they're immune response.
22:30
Speaker 1: They're antibodies that they built up when they were children
22:33
Speaker 1: having been given this diphtheria vaccine had waned, and they
22:38
Speaker 1: it waned enough that diphtheria was able to kind of
22:41
Speaker 1: take over and and cause this outbreak. And so when
22:44
Speaker 1: you look at it like that, that's almost a really
22:46
Speaker 1: good analogy to herd immunity. It's like over time, the
22:52
Speaker 1: the the that threshold can be can be can decline
22:56
Speaker 1: so that the virus or the bacteria can get in
22:59
Speaker 1: the same thing. The individual level, if you don't get
23:01
Speaker 1: a booster shot if you need it. For some vaccines,
23:04
Speaker 1: you don't need it. I think measles, moms, and rubella
23:07
Speaker 1: are all considered UM to confer lifetime immunity if it
23:11
Speaker 1: does work on you, and I think those are nine
23:14
Speaker 1: seven percent effective. So for nine seven out of a
23:17
Speaker 1: hundred people, when you get an mm ARE vaccine as
23:20
Speaker 1: a kid, you don't need any kind of booster and
23:22
Speaker 1: you're gonna be immune to it for life, right, which
23:25
Speaker 1: is great. It is UM. That's the point of accedence. Yeah,
23:30
Speaker 1: and this is where we need to dip our toe
23:31
Speaker 1: into something UM. That's called vaccine hesitancy. That's that's what
23:36
Speaker 1: the official name for it is UH. And this is
23:39
Speaker 1: a situation we have UM. I'm not sure about other
23:43
Speaker 1: countries because I didn't do a lot of research into that.
23:46
Speaker 1: But here in the United States, especially certain parts of
23:48
Speaker 1: the United States, there are vaccinine vaccine exemptions in place,
23:54
Speaker 1: granted for philosophical purposes, religious purposes, personal reasons. UM. It
24:00
Speaker 1: is important to point out here that personal reasons get
24:04
Speaker 1: all the press. UM, like when you see articles about
24:07
Speaker 1: anti vaxxer's as people that choose not to get their
24:10
Speaker 1: child vaccinated for certain reasons. But the the largest percentage
24:15
Speaker 1: of people who don't get vaccinated very sadly. UM. It
24:18
Speaker 1: has to do with UH finances and poverty, right. I mean,
24:23
Speaker 1: like it's it's if you want to vaccinate your kid,
24:26
Speaker 1: but you can't because you don't have the money or
24:29
Speaker 1: they're not available to you. I think kids in rural
24:32
Speaker 1: areas have much lower vaccine rates than kids in urban areas. UM.
24:36
Speaker 1: That is really sad, and I think that's something that
24:39
Speaker 1: because it's such a public health success, UM, it should
24:44
Speaker 1: be something that's much more widely available than anybody who
24:47
Speaker 1: wants it. Yeah, here's some numbers on that. There was
24:51
Speaker 1: a study by the CDC in that noted the percentage
24:56
Speaker 1: of children without any vaccines had risen to about one
25:00
Speaker 1: point three percent. And these are kids that were born
25:02
Speaker 1: in the year two thousand fifteen, and then they compared
25:06
Speaker 1: that with the two thousand one survey. They found it
25:09
Speaker 1: was just point three percent of children between the ages
25:12
Speaker 1: of nineteen to thirty five months. So basically they looked
25:16
Speaker 1: at the numbers and they found that the children who
25:18
Speaker 1: are uninsured or who live in rural areas like you said,
25:21
Speaker 1: or maybe had Medicaid insurance. Seventeen point two percent of
25:26
Speaker 1: the unvaccinated kids were uninsured compared to two point eight
25:29
Speaker 1: percent of overall kids. There's a big deaf It is
25:32
Speaker 1: a huge diff for sure, UM. And then there are,
25:35
Speaker 1: like you said, there's parents who forego vaccinations, uh, for
25:39
Speaker 1: personal reasons or religious reasons, UM, or philosophical reasons, although
25:43
Speaker 1: I don't understand what the differences between philosophical and personal. Yeah,
25:46
Speaker 1: I agree, UM, and I'd be interested to find that out.
25:50
Speaker 1: But the people who don't vaccinate their kids for whatever reason,
25:56
Speaker 1: who make a conscious decision not to are UM tend
26:00
Speaker 1: to be viewed as freeloaders. And that's not just us
26:03
Speaker 1: like throw in shade, that's like the term that that
26:06
Speaker 1: is used as freeloaders. They're freeloading on the larger herd.
26:10
Speaker 1: To UM, prevent from being exposed to this disease or
26:15
Speaker 1: these diseases or viruses or bacteria, UM, because they're depending
26:21
Speaker 1: on other people to immunize their kids through vaccinations instead.
26:27
Speaker 1: That's right. Uh. And there's another weird phenomenon that's happened
26:31
Speaker 1: here in the US that where a vaccine program is
26:35
Speaker 1: so successful that generations will go by without any of
26:39
Speaker 1: this disease. So you're not even familiar with it. So
26:43
Speaker 1: it's sort of absurd in this way that it's been flipped.
26:48
Speaker 1: But one of the reasons sometimes you will hear uh
26:51
Speaker 1: to to not vaccinate. It's like, well, that old disease
26:54
Speaker 1: that haven't you know that, we haven't seen that in
26:56
Speaker 1: two hundred years, And I'm gonna put that vaccine in
26:59
Speaker 1: Mike Kid and a cycle. Yeah, because the vaccine worked, right,
27:04
Speaker 1: It's a victim of its own success. The vast vaccination
27:07
Speaker 1: program is. And I think from what I can tell,
27:09
Speaker 1: that's how UM public health officials typically explain uh anti
27:14
Speaker 1: vaccine or declines in vaccine rates among people who consciously
27:19
Speaker 1: choose not to that basically, they just haven't seen how
27:22
Speaker 1: bad a disease is, Like you haven't seen what polio
27:25
Speaker 1: can do. To somebody because you were born into a
27:27
Speaker 1: world war. For all intents and purposes, polio just didn't exist, right,
27:33
Speaker 1: And so you lose that incentive that somebody who is
27:38
Speaker 1: aware of what polio can do, um the incentive that
27:41
Speaker 1: that person has to vaccinate their kid. And then when
27:44
Speaker 1: you couple that with um questions about a vaccine or
27:49
Speaker 1: fears that there are some um negative side effects from
27:52
Speaker 1: a vaccine, that disincentive or that lack of incentive becomes
27:56
Speaker 1: a disincentive to get that. And so there's this ironic
28:00
Speaker 1: circle that develops where those vaccination rates go down, we
28:05
Speaker 1: dip below the herd immunity level, there's an outbreak of
28:09
Speaker 1: that disease, and then the very people who lead to
28:12
Speaker 1: that decline in vaccination levels point to that outbreak as
28:16
Speaker 1: evidence that vaccines don't work or herd immunity doesn't work,
28:21
Speaker 1: and it's it's um. It's hard to wrap your head around.
28:24
Speaker 1: It is very hard to wrap your head around, especially
28:26
Speaker 1: if you are fully on board the vaccine and UM
28:30
Speaker 1: herd immunity through vaccine trains. It can be fairly galling,
28:34
Speaker 1: I believe. Yeah. And there's a couple of things, A
28:37
Speaker 1: couple of big challenges to herd immunity and whether or
28:40
Speaker 1: not it can work today. And one of them is
28:42
Speaker 1: that we can get on an airplane with our family
28:47
Speaker 1: and we can fly great, great distances and get places
28:50
Speaker 1: really fast and then come home again really fast. And
28:53
Speaker 1: this happened in two thousand eight with the outbreak in
28:57
Speaker 1: San Diego. That was a family that went to Switzerland
29:00
Speaker 1: in um the this little boy picked up the virus
29:04
Speaker 1: of the measles while he was in Switzerland. Such a
29:07
Speaker 1: bad little boy he was. He was he he was unvaccinated,
29:14
Speaker 1: He got sick. When he got home, he infected eleven
29:17
Speaker 1: other people, including one who was an infant that was
29:19
Speaker 1: too young to be vaccinated. Just if you were like
29:22
Speaker 1: ambivalent about this through that that little detailing. Yeah, And
29:28
Speaker 1: at first they were like, what is going on here
29:30
Speaker 1: with this weird outbreak because we have a minimum threshold
29:34
Speaker 1: here in San Diego against the measles for her community,
29:38
Speaker 1: and in two thousand it was declared eliminated basically all
29:42
Speaker 1: over the country. And so they started to kind of
29:44
Speaker 1: poke around this case and they said, all right, San
29:47
Speaker 1: Diego is doing great, but this kid actually goes to
29:50
Speaker 1: a school and his localized social group is about seventeen
29:55
Speaker 1: of them uh at this school don't vaccinate. So while
29:59
Speaker 1: the city was doing fine, his little localized community had
30:02
Speaker 1: a pretty high percentage of unvaccinated kids, and so that
30:08
Speaker 1: allowed it to spread, right, It allowed it to spread.
30:11
Speaker 1: Those kids became immunized, they became ill, but then they
30:14
Speaker 1: became immunized to the measles naturally from being exposed to
30:18
Speaker 1: it and having fallen ill um. But the big problem is,
30:21
Speaker 1: in addition to the fact that it just kind of
30:24
Speaker 1: ravaged this hyperlocal social group, there are other pockets within
30:29
Speaker 1: the herd that probably bear a striking resemblance to that
30:34
Speaker 1: social group. And those social groups come in contact with
30:37
Speaker 1: the other social group that's been infected, you can have
30:39
Speaker 1: an epidemic within the larger immunized herd, which you don't want.
30:44
Speaker 1: You want those people to be protected. But the decline
30:48
Speaker 1: in vaccine rates and the fact that we can travel,
30:51
Speaker 1: like you were saying so easily, not only does it
30:53
Speaker 1: mean that like a virus or bacteria can travel just
30:56
Speaker 1: as fast on on board a human who's on a plane, um,
31:00
Speaker 1: it also means that there's constant fluctuations to the percentage
31:06
Speaker 1: that herd immunity threshold because of the influx and outflux
31:10
Speaker 1: of people who are vaccinated or not vaccinated. Right, And
31:14
Speaker 1: this is why those vaccination vaccination rates being high is
31:18
Speaker 1: really important, um, because it's it's protecting everybody. Yes, you
31:22
Speaker 1: want a large public buy in to the concept of vaccinations,
31:26
Speaker 1: and when there is not a large public buying, then
31:29
Speaker 1: your herd immunity is under threat and everybody who is
31:32
Speaker 1: bought in is is um at risk. Because again you
31:38
Speaker 1: might say, well, who cares if you if you've inoculated
31:41
Speaker 1: your kids, if they're immunized against measles, what do you
31:44
Speaker 1: care if somebody else's kid isn't because they have personal
31:48
Speaker 1: reasons against it. Um, your kids find they're inoculated, don't
31:52
Speaker 1: forget that. With the measles vaccine, I think it's like
31:56
Speaker 1: pcent effective and that that means that if there's a
32:00
Speaker 1: hundred hundred kids in a room and one of them
32:03
Speaker 1: has full on contagious measles, which again is very contagious
32:07
Speaker 1: like the mumps in its contagiousness, three of those kids
32:10
Speaker 1: who have been vaccinated are possibly going to get the
32:15
Speaker 1: measles from that kid even though they were vaccinated, because
32:18
Speaker 1: their body just didn't form the right immune response or
32:21
Speaker 1: enough of an immune response that they be protected if
32:24
Speaker 1: they were exposed to that kid. So it is a
32:27
Speaker 1: problem for even people who have been vaccinated against diseases
32:31
Speaker 1: to have a decline and herd immunity. And then also,
32:34
Speaker 1: don't forget the people who don't have uh an immune
32:38
Speaker 1: system that can allow for them to be inoculated or vaccinated,
32:41
Speaker 1: and the elderly who are just by virtue of being older,
32:46
Speaker 1: more susceptible to a really hard about with whatever disease
32:50
Speaker 1: it is they're being exposed to. Yeah, I've been running
32:53
Speaker 1: up against that, that frustrating sort of circular um non
32:57
Speaker 1: logic about COVID Night Team. I'm a member of a
33:01
Speaker 1: Facebook page of a an area and more rural Georgia.
33:06
Speaker 1: That's all I'll say. You could have just stopped at
33:08
Speaker 1: a Facebook page. And there's been a lot of that
33:12
Speaker 1: same sort of um circular logic of well, all these
33:17
Speaker 1: models are turning out to be wrong. They weigh overstated
33:20
Speaker 1: everything because look at the numbers falling. It's like that's
33:23
Speaker 1: because we social distance and because we did all this
33:27
Speaker 1: stuff and like it worked, that's how modeling works. Like
33:30
Speaker 1: the initial numbers were really high because that was just
33:35
Speaker 1: sort of the starting point, that was the input data
33:38
Speaker 1: was here we are at the beginning, and this can
33:40
Speaker 1: happen this way, and Americans got together by and large
33:43
Speaker 1: at first at least and did the right thing, and
33:46
Speaker 1: so those numbers went way down and it worked. And
33:49
Speaker 1: then they're using that as proof of like we'll see
33:52
Speaker 1: the modelings just off. They're just guessing. Yeah that a
33:56
Speaker 1: mile away of course. Just yeah, yeah, everything is political,
34:02
Speaker 1: huh yeah, And I'm just you know, I've tried to
34:05
Speaker 1: I've tried to avoid it, but I have also commented
34:07
Speaker 1: at times like modeling is not guessing. It is there.
34:11
Speaker 1: There's real research and math that goes into it, and
34:15
Speaker 1: and that math changes based on the input data. Like
34:17
Speaker 1: in a month, there will probably be different numbers. And
34:20
Speaker 1: it's not because they're just guessing and they're wrong, right right, Yeah,
34:25
Speaker 1: it's um it's that distrust and expertise that has really
34:30
Speaker 1: kind of wrecked things quite a bit. Yeah, all right,
34:34
Speaker 1: let's talk about what's going on right now and how
34:37
Speaker 1: this applies to our situation today with the novel coronavirus
34:42
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen call it whatever you want, Well, wait a minute,
34:46
Speaker 1: I think we should institute a tradition in this episode
34:48
Speaker 1: where every time we're about to talk about COVID, we
34:51
Speaker 1: make it a cliffhanger and take a break. Okay, all right,
34:54
Speaker 1: we'll take a break and we'll talk about all that
34:56
Speaker 1: right after this a shosh and shock. Alright, Chuck, thanks
35:24
Speaker 1: for playing along with me. We're gonna have like fifty
35:28
Speaker 1: ad breaks in here because we're gonna stop every time
35:31
Speaker 1: right before we talk about COVID. Yeah. So, what we're
35:34
Speaker 1: dealing with now in the most recent days, in a
35:38
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, is a new sort of divide has emerged. Um.
35:43
Speaker 1: Everyone got together at first, it seemed like and there
35:46
Speaker 1: was a lot of unity for five minutes, and then
35:50
Speaker 1: a dividing line has now formed. Um in the United
35:53
Speaker 1: States and kind of in the world, depending on what
35:55
Speaker 1: your view is on how to best handle this, and
35:58
Speaker 1: the two sort of route are and we'll talk about
36:02
Speaker 1: specific example examples of different countries and what they're doing.
36:05
Speaker 1: But there's elimination and then there's herd immunity and vaccinations
36:12
Speaker 1: and not by not pooping, you don't mean pooping. By elimination,
36:16
Speaker 1: I mean getting rid of it, of the of the virus.
36:19
Speaker 1: But not by pooping, no, not by pooping. But we're
36:23
Speaker 1: talking about a few countries in particular. Everyone's talking about
36:25
Speaker 1: Sweden right now because Sweden, compared to the rest of
36:30
Speaker 1: the Nordic countries, the rest of Europe and most of
36:32
Speaker 1: the rest of the world, was one country that was like,
36:35
Speaker 1: you know what we are gonna say, if you feel sick,
36:39
Speaker 1: stay at home. If you're at risk, maybe stay at home,
36:42
Speaker 1: try and uh keep a safe distance from people. But
36:47
Speaker 1: bars are open, restaurants are open. Um, no big concerts
36:50
Speaker 1: or anything like that, and let's try and get that
36:53
Speaker 1: herd immunity going instead of shutting everything down. Right. So
36:58
Speaker 1: they're they're pursuing mixture of like social distancing guidelines, but
37:04
Speaker 1: nothing that's being super enforced aside from you know, those gatherings,
37:08
Speaker 1: like you said. But ultimately they're pursuing basically a strategy
37:13
Speaker 1: of herd immunity while trying their best to keep the
37:17
Speaker 1: curve flattened, right, And I think we're pushing this one
37:22
Speaker 1: out sooner, So this will just be out like four
37:24
Speaker 1: or five days from now, and all these numbers are
37:27
Speaker 1: going to be changing. But the jury is kind of
37:29
Speaker 1: still out on whether or not that's working in Sweden. UM,
37:32
Speaker 1: as of a couple of days ago, they have a
37:35
Speaker 1: far higher infection rate than their Nordic neighbors. UM not,
37:41
Speaker 1: I mean it's a little lower than some other countries
37:43
Speaker 1: to the south. So we just don't really know yet
37:47
Speaker 1: because the jury is still out. We don't know what
37:50
Speaker 1: our our percentage needs to be right now. Like I said,
37:53
Speaker 1: it could be as high as eight percent, So we
37:55
Speaker 1: just don't know. As these numbers come in over the
37:57
Speaker 1: next month or two, it's gonna be really telling. UM.
38:00
Speaker 1: I think kind of either way you slice it, it's
38:03
Speaker 1: not right to say, all right, we'll look at Sweden
38:07
Speaker 1: and if if it works there, that means it's gonna
38:09
Speaker 1: work everywhere, because that's just not the case. No be
38:12
Speaker 1: in Sweden has like consistently beat this drum. They're like, look,
38:15
Speaker 1: we're not even sure this is gonna work for us,
38:17
Speaker 1: but we're willing to try it. But we're far likelier
38:20
Speaker 1: to be successful at something like this because our UM
38:23
Speaker 1: population maybe is a little more collectivists than some other populations.
38:28
Speaker 1: They're healthier, They are healthier, they have a big deal
38:32
Speaker 1: a much stronger um and more responsive health care system.
38:36
Speaker 1: They have a more homogeneous population don't forget, which may
38:39
Speaker 1: mean that they could reach HERD immunity more quickly than
38:42
Speaker 1: some other countries that have less homogeneous populations. Sweden is
38:46
Speaker 1: more homogeneous. They also get this. They also they don't
38:50
Speaker 1: have like huge mega grocery stores where there's a thousand
38:53
Speaker 1: or undred people milling around all at the same time.
38:56
Speaker 1: They have like smaller shops and markets serve like a
39:01
Speaker 1: particular like corner in the neighborhood, and they have them
39:04
Speaker 1: like every few corners, so there's not tons of people
39:07
Speaker 1: in the market at every given at any given moment.
39:10
Speaker 1: There's just a lot of differences between Swedish culture and
39:15
Speaker 1: say American culture. That's that is giving the Swedes the
39:19
Speaker 1: confidence to try this. But even still, there are people
39:22
Speaker 1: in Sweden that are like, this is indefensibly reckless. We
39:26
Speaker 1: can't do this, we can't try this is a stupid
39:29
Speaker 1: and like you said, there are some early signs that
39:32
Speaker 1: it is not going so well because compared to um Norway, Denmark,
39:37
Speaker 1: and Finland, their death rate adjusted for um UH population
39:42
Speaker 1: size is between three and six times the death rate
39:45
Speaker 1: of those nations, and those nations tried elimination. Yeah, and
39:50
Speaker 1: I saw that the UM. I don't. I don't think
39:53
Speaker 1: it was like the I think it might have been
39:55
Speaker 1: the head of whatever their CDC is said that they
39:58
Speaker 1: were surprised by the death toll. Yeah, yeah, and not
40:03
Speaker 1: in a way like they seem like really good people,
40:06
Speaker 1: so it's not like, oh, we never thought of this,
40:08
Speaker 1: but I think they were surprised. It is as high
40:11
Speaker 1: as it's been right UM. And so Sweden is not
40:15
Speaker 1: the only one trying this. India is trying it as well,
40:18
Speaker 1: and they're doing something very similar to Sweden. They have
40:20
Speaker 1: a lot of social distancing guidelines, but are also kind
40:23
Speaker 1: of hoping for natural herd immunity to kick in UM.
40:28
Speaker 1: And they don't have much of a choice there. They
40:33
Speaker 1: have like point five five hospital beds, so a little
40:36
Speaker 1: over half of a hospital bed per one thousand people
40:41
Speaker 1: in the country, and forty four thousand ventilators UM. But
40:46
Speaker 1: that both Sweden and India are taking a strategy of saying,
40:49
Speaker 1: if you're older, if you're elderly, if you are in
40:53
Speaker 1: this high risk group for suffering complications from COVID nineteen,
40:57
Speaker 1: you stay home too, and we'll let the younger population
41:00
Speaker 1: go out and get sick because they can handle it
41:03
Speaker 1: better and maybe less of a strain on the health
41:05
Speaker 1: care system. Um, and they'll be the immunized herd for
41:10
Speaker 1: the rest of the population. I don't know if those
41:13
Speaker 1: strategies are going to work or not, um, but that's
41:15
Speaker 1: kind of like the mentality behind them. Yeah. And there
41:19
Speaker 1: are other countries. I think in England they originally we're
41:22
Speaker 1: going to kind of follow that model, and then everyone
41:25
Speaker 1: said no way, bollocks to that, and so they have,
41:30
Speaker 1: um got some stricter measures going. Belarus is the one
41:35
Speaker 1: place that's really that. The president there, who's been in
41:38
Speaker 1: office i think since, has called the stricter responses around
41:42
Speaker 1: the world mass psychosis, and he's basically like, I mean
41:45
Speaker 1: they're having a full on military parade this weekend and saying,
41:51
Speaker 1: screw all this. Uh. And Belarus has one of Europe's
41:54
Speaker 1: highest per capita infection rates. Yeah, it's like, have any
41:58
Speaker 1: of you even seen there ownavirus and yourself I haven't. Yeah, jeez.
42:05
Speaker 1: There was a guy on one of this that same
42:07
Speaker 1: Facebook page that said I don't even know a single
42:10
Speaker 1: person who's had it l O L. And I was like, well,
42:14
Speaker 1: you're you're lucky, sir. You should be thankful for that,
42:16
Speaker 1: and he's like, hmm, it's not luck could be something
42:20
Speaker 1: else dot dot dot, and it's just like, I'm stepping
42:23
Speaker 1: out of this immediately. Man, I don't know if I
42:27
Speaker 1: I say hats off to you for being on that
42:30
Speaker 1: Facebook group or just deeply pity you for being on
42:33
Speaker 1: that Facebook group. Well I sort of have to be
42:35
Speaker 1: because I have to keep up with some things. Uh.
42:38
Speaker 1: This is a another part of Georgia where on a
42:40
Speaker 1: little little tract of land. Oh gotch, So you need
42:43
Speaker 1: to like nobody's squatting on it. Yeah, I'm the only squatter. So.
42:49
Speaker 1: Um So, this whole herd immunity thing, there's herd immunity
42:54
Speaker 1: itself has been controversial, uh since before the COVID nineteen pandemic. Right,
42:59
Speaker 1: those same but who questioned vaccines also questioned the concept
43:04
Speaker 1: of reaching herd immunity through vaccinations. There's like suspicion that, um,
43:09
Speaker 1: you're artificially suppressing the vaccine and you're actually weakening the
43:14
Speaker 1: immune system, and that it's going to set us up
43:16
Speaker 1: for this horrible problem down the road. None of that
43:19
Speaker 1: bears scrutiny under logic. Um, but today herd immunity has
43:25
Speaker 1: kind of reached this controversial inflection point for a totally
43:28
Speaker 1: different reason, and that the people who are saying, well,
43:31
Speaker 1: we're going to opt for to try for her immunity
43:35
Speaker 1: now rather than later so that we can get our
43:37
Speaker 1: economy going again, what they're talking about is her community
43:40
Speaker 1: without a vaccine. Big, big, big difference, huge difference, because
43:46
Speaker 1: what they're talking about is basically reverting back to the
43:49
Speaker 1: pre vaccine thing where it was just like, Okay, I
43:52
Speaker 1: hope we get to herd immunity sooner than later, and
43:54
Speaker 1: a lot of people are going to die along the way.
43:56
Speaker 1: And that's one of the big flaws of this argument
43:59
Speaker 1: of going for her immunity right now, which is there's
44:03
Speaker 1: going to be a lot of people who die as
44:06
Speaker 1: a result before we get to her immunity because we
44:10
Speaker 1: don't have a vaccine there. We're going to have to
44:12
Speaker 1: reach her community through just exposure to this virus, just
44:17
Speaker 1: like in the old timey days. Yeah, I was about
44:20
Speaker 1: to say, it's as if we were living in ancient
44:22
Speaker 1: times and just sort of crossing our fingers. So lots
44:27
Speaker 1: of death is a big flaw against it. Um If
44:31
Speaker 1: if the reproduction number for stars Cove two is three,
44:37
Speaker 1: that's confusing. But if it has, If if COVID nineteen
44:40
Speaker 1: has a reproduction number of three, let's say um, and
44:44
Speaker 1: that that means that the herd immunity threshold is about
44:46
Speaker 1: se That's about the high end that anybody's saying is
44:49
Speaker 1: seventy should stop the virus from spreading anymore. Right, So
44:55
Speaker 1: if that's the case, then that means seventy of a
44:58
Speaker 1: population would be sick. And I think a half to
45:03
Speaker 1: one percent of a fatality rate would mean that of
45:06
Speaker 1: the larger population, point three five to point seven percent
45:10
Speaker 1: of the population will die. So if you know that,
45:15
Speaker 1: and you can take just the populations of some of
45:17
Speaker 1: these countries that are trying this and say, well, before
45:20
Speaker 1: you reach her community, um Sweden, out of your population
45:24
Speaker 1: of ten point to five million people, about thirty six
45:28
Speaker 1: thousand to seventy two thousand are going to die along
45:32
Speaker 1: the way. Statistically speaking, that's the number that you can
45:35
Speaker 1: bet on, Yeah, between one point to five and about
45:39
Speaker 1: two and a half a million in the US. And
45:41
Speaker 1: if you're going to look at the world population, we're
45:45
Speaker 1: talking numbers higher than the Spanish flu twenty seven to
45:48
Speaker 1: about fifty four million people dead. And that's if you know,
45:52
Speaker 1: we're not saying like that's gonna happen. We're saying that's
45:54
Speaker 1: if the whole world took the approach of just all right,
45:57
Speaker 1: let's just see how we do, you know, right, And
46:01
Speaker 1: and I mean like this, that's we're a virgin population humanity,
46:07
Speaker 1: not just the US, not just Canada, not just the UK,
46:10
Speaker 1: not just Sweden. The world is a virgin population to
46:14
Speaker 1: this virus because it's a novel coronavirus. We've never no
46:18
Speaker 1: one on Earth has ever been exposed to this particular
46:21
Speaker 1: virus before, so there isn't any pre built in immunity
46:25
Speaker 1: like there would be if it makes another round a
46:27
Speaker 1: year from now, right, So it just burns. Viruses and
46:31
Speaker 1: bacteria burn their way through populations like that. So you
46:35
Speaker 1: can imagine it would spread, uh, pretty effectively. And if
46:39
Speaker 1: the fatality rate really is a half to one percent,
46:41
Speaker 1: those numbers could be pretty real depending on what what
46:45
Speaker 1: measures we take to mitigate those, Like you were saying,
46:47
Speaker 1: so death that's a big, big problem, um. And also
46:51
Speaker 1: along the way, we would be doing the opposite of
46:55
Speaker 1: flattening the curve by just letting people go out and
46:58
Speaker 1: getting sick to get things over with. Yeah. I mean,
47:01
Speaker 1: we we've worked so hard to flatten the curve and
47:03
Speaker 1: it worked in most of the most of the United States,
47:07
Speaker 1: except you know, these weird outbreaks in in smaller towns
47:11
Speaker 1: that didn't have enough beds and then laters and that's
47:13
Speaker 1: all been really really sad to see happen. But by
47:16
Speaker 1: and large, we did the right thing for a while
47:18
Speaker 1: and it flattened the curve pretty well. But this would
47:21
Speaker 1: fatten that curve right back up. Uh, and we'd be
47:23
Speaker 1: in that same like in a worse situation than we
47:27
Speaker 1: were going in, right. So, um, that's another big one.
47:32
Speaker 1: And then also took reinfection is another huge flaw in this.
47:36
Speaker 1: We don't know if stars cove two, which causes COVID nineteen, um,
47:42
Speaker 1: how fast it's mutating. If it's like other coronaviruses or
47:47
Speaker 1: other flu viruses, it probably has a lot of what's
47:50
Speaker 1: called antigenic drift, where it mutates really rapidly and creates
47:54
Speaker 1: new strains that the antibodies that have built up this
47:58
Speaker 1: immune defense against one variety are useless to fight this
48:03
Speaker 1: new variety. Right. Yeah, some diseases don't do that, like polio.
48:07
Speaker 1: The reason our polio vaccine has been so successful is
48:11
Speaker 1: because it doesn't mutate very much, it doesn't call it,
48:13
Speaker 1: it doesn't create new strains. With coronavirus is they tend
48:17
Speaker 1: to do that a lot, so there's a real chance
48:19
Speaker 1: for reinfection. So this herd immunity will just be like
48:22
Speaker 1: this ongoing thing until we can come up with the
48:25
Speaker 1: viable vaccine that can that can protect us from basically
48:30
Speaker 1: any mutated variety of this coronavirus. That's right, an antigenic drift.
48:37
Speaker 1: Do I need to say it? No? You don't, great? Great?
48:43
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Chuck, I think he's for sure that that
48:48
Speaker 1: muted trumpet thing that they got going on. What's that
48:52
Speaker 1: thing called on the trumpet that they make that sound with.
48:55
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the plunger plunger head muffler, the thing. I
49:01
Speaker 1: don't know. Yeah, you're on the trolley. So. Uh. The
49:06
Speaker 1: other thing that we need to consider, and that is
49:08
Speaker 1: the other sort of way that you can go about
49:10
Speaker 1: this is elimination. Elimination that we were talking about, and
49:16
Speaker 1: not pooping, and that is the opposite tactic, and that's
49:19
Speaker 1: what most of the world has done, including the u S,
49:21
Speaker 1: which is self quarantining, isolating, trying to contain the virus,
49:26
Speaker 1: closing borders, mass gloves, all that stuff. Um, we have
49:31
Speaker 1: flattened the curve for the most part. Other countries have
49:34
Speaker 1: come close to elimination. New Zealand is getting a lot
49:37
Speaker 1: of press because they and you know, they got a
49:40
Speaker 1: lot of Again, you can't say, like, well, the same
49:43
Speaker 1: thing could happen here in the US because New Zealand
49:45
Speaker 1: is a very isolated place and it's a smaller population
49:48
Speaker 1: and they have super smart elected officials and smart people
49:52
Speaker 1: who listen to those elected officials. Good to get no, man,
49:58
Speaker 1: someone come at me news. England's Prime minister is amazing.
50:01
Speaker 1: She's she's like one of the best. Yeah. I remember
50:04
Speaker 1: when we were there. Um, we got a cabra, do
50:06
Speaker 1: you me? And I did to the airport and this
50:09
Speaker 1: this guy, I think it was an immigrant from Sri
50:11
Speaker 1: Lanka and he just could not stop boasting about how
50:14
Speaker 1: great the New Zealand government was, about how taking care
50:18
Speaker 1: of their population was, how like how much of a
50:21
Speaker 1: sense of community the whole country had, and it was
50:24
Speaker 1: just really refreshing to experience. Yeah it is, Uh, maybe
50:29
Speaker 1: we should move there anyway. So the thing about New Zealand, Yeah,
50:32
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's some people listening like yeah, why don't
50:34
Speaker 1: you move there if you love it so much? And
50:37
Speaker 1: there's there's also Kiwis that are going come on over,
50:40
Speaker 1: We'd love to have you. And then there's also probably
50:43
Speaker 1: some there like please don't. We've had enough of you too.
50:47
Speaker 1: So why it worked there though, was because, like I said,
50:50
Speaker 1: they have you have to have everyone on board, and
50:53
Speaker 1: it seemed like most everyone on board or got on
50:56
Speaker 1: board in New Zealand, and that's just not happened here.
50:59
Speaker 1: So yeah, and I mean, it really has worked for
51:01
Speaker 1: New Zealand, but they've taken serious restrictions, like you you
51:06
Speaker 1: can't fly if you want to domestically, they shut down
51:10
Speaker 1: their reports. If you want to fly to New Zealand,
51:13
Speaker 1: t s for you, you're not gonna get anywhere near
51:15
Speaker 1: the country. But in addition that, if you're a New
51:17
Speaker 1: Zealand citizen, you can't fly from one place to another
51:21
Speaker 1: if you want to just for the heck of it. Right,
51:23
Speaker 1: There's so they've really insted instituted some draconian measures, but
51:27
Speaker 1: it seems to have worked. Like there was a report
51:30
Speaker 1: that came out two days ago on May fourth, that
51:32
Speaker 1: says that the models originally used to project how many cases.
51:37
Speaker 1: New Zealand was going to have said that they were
51:39
Speaker 1: going to get something like a thousand cases a day
51:41
Speaker 1: if they did nothing like no lockdown measures. All they've
51:45
Speaker 1: had since March is fourteen hundred and eighty seven cases,
51:50
Speaker 1: not a thousand a day, seven cases total, and they've
51:54
Speaker 1: only had twenty deaths. So it seems like elimination can work.
51:58
Speaker 1: And for that reason, and a lot of people are
52:01
Speaker 1: a lot of countries have said this is what we're
52:02
Speaker 1: gonna try, and elimination just amounts to hiding out from
52:06
Speaker 1: the virus until a vaccine can be developed. The problem
52:10
Speaker 1: is there are serious flaws to that too, depending on
52:14
Speaker 1: what kind of what kind of government and culture that
52:18
Speaker 1: you have. But even without that, depending on that, it
52:21
Speaker 1: requires that everybody act basically perfectly and avoid everybody else
52:28
Speaker 1: and give up your job, give up your economy and
52:31
Speaker 1: wait until somebody comes up with a vaccine. And that
52:34
Speaker 1: can be a really pricey, costly measure. Yeah, which is
52:39
Speaker 1: why a lot of people are like this, this we
52:41
Speaker 1: got to find some other way, Yeah, And they've looked
52:44
Speaker 1: at um there are like ways you can look at
52:47
Speaker 1: the countries and decide whether or not people are going
52:49
Speaker 1: to comply or not. Um, there was uh some cultural data.
52:54
Speaker 1: There was a company called half Steata Insights, and they
52:59
Speaker 1: look it things like individualism of a population, basically like
53:04
Speaker 1: whether or not people are gonna all go along or
53:06
Speaker 1: if people are like heck no, man, I want my freedoms.
53:10
Speaker 1: I'm an individual, I'm an American and you can't tell
53:13
Speaker 1: me what to do, right. And you might not be
53:16
Speaker 1: surprised to learn that in Sweden, Uh they have a
53:19
Speaker 1: rank of seventy one out of one hundred as on individualism.
53:24
Speaker 1: Uh the U scores ninety one out of a hundred,
53:27
Speaker 1: so basically out of a hundred would be uh difficult
53:32
Speaker 1: to maintain. You know, these kind of restrictions for too long.
53:36
Speaker 1: I mean, if you look at it like that, it's remarkable,
53:39
Speaker 1: how it's remarkable, in heartening, how much people have given
53:44
Speaker 1: up individual liberties for the greater good in this pandemic
53:48
Speaker 1: in the United States. Then, like I hadn't looked at
53:50
Speaker 1: it that way. I just kind of saw like one
53:53
Speaker 1: and thought, okay, you know that's that's that's a that's
53:56
Speaker 1: a high score. There's a lot of individualism in the
53:58
Speaker 1: United States. We gotta into visual streak like nobody's business, right,
54:02
Speaker 1: But if you look at it almost like it's a
54:04
Speaker 1: it's a percentage of the population that will listen in
54:08
Speaker 1: situations like this, then it really does kind of go
54:10
Speaker 1: to show you how how much of a sacrifice people
54:13
Speaker 1: have made, not just Americans. I don't want to just
54:15
Speaker 1: say it like that, Like if you're in a collective
54:17
Speaker 1: of society, you're still sacrificing for the greater good. It's
54:21
Speaker 1: just possibly a little more culturally ingrained in you that
54:25
Speaker 1: this is the thing to do. But either way, the
54:28
Speaker 1: idea of people people sacrificing for others is is it's heartening.
54:33
Speaker 1: The problem is is people can only sacrifice for so
54:36
Speaker 1: long until you have just massive economic drawbacks. And and
54:43
Speaker 1: that's the thing. So if you follow the forced herd
54:47
Speaker 1: immunity natural herd immunity strategy towards COVID nineteen, you will
54:52
Speaker 1: it will result in a lot of deaths. If you
54:55
Speaker 1: follow the elimination strategy, it results in a trem in
55:00
Speaker 1: this amount of economic hardship. And it's easy to say,
55:03
Speaker 1: chuck like, well, lives lost tops economic hardship any day
55:07
Speaker 1: of the week, And ultimately, yes it does. But it's
55:11
Speaker 1: you really should not um understate the toll in human
55:19
Speaker 1: misery of economic hardships and how bad this has gotten
55:23
Speaker 1: for some people and how quickly. Yeah, And the other
55:27
Speaker 1: thing I'll say too, is one of the arguments I've
55:29
Speaker 1: heard is that, you know, there are going to be
55:32
Speaker 1: so many deaths from people who are who are depressed
55:35
Speaker 1: because they can't go out, and people dying by suicide
55:40
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, which you know, I don't want
55:42
Speaker 1: to minimize that because that that for sure has an
55:44
Speaker 1: impact on people. But I saw a tweet from a
55:47
Speaker 1: guy that was talking about can we just stop pretending
55:50
Speaker 1: that our former world of like working fifty hours a
55:54
Speaker 1: week and commuting in a stressful environment and hectic crowds
55:58
Speaker 1: and mask consu umerism and pollution and everything else was
56:02
Speaker 1: like a mental health utopia. So it's you know, you've
56:05
Speaker 1: got to kind of look at the big picture and
56:07
Speaker 1: not just pick and choose what you're going to highlight
56:11
Speaker 1: because it fits your narrative. You know. Yeah, I think
56:13
Speaker 1: one of the like the few good outcomes so far
56:17
Speaker 1: of this has been like a huge down shift in
56:20
Speaker 1: that um manic productivity that drives most Americans, you know. Yeah,
56:26
Speaker 1: And you know, here's The thing is, we don't know.
56:29
Speaker 1: Everything is so new. We're not gonna sit here and
56:31
Speaker 1: pretend like there is only one right way, like, we
56:35
Speaker 1: don't know. So there's so much that we don't know
56:37
Speaker 1: about this is we don't know the exact right path
56:40
Speaker 1: forward yet as a population, and the medical community doesn't
56:44
Speaker 1: know the exact right path forward. We're all trying to
56:46
Speaker 1: figure this out in real time and build the road
56:50
Speaker 1: as we're driving on it or whatever that expression is.
56:54
Speaker 1: And you know, I have my money on uh, staying
56:58
Speaker 1: at home, slowing this thing down and elimination. Other people
57:02
Speaker 1: might feel a different way, But it seems like that
57:05
Speaker 1: way is working better. Yeah it is. But again, if
57:09
Speaker 1: you it's still early and the data is still coming in.
57:12
Speaker 1: There was a report this week of a hundred New
57:15
Speaker 1: York hospitals. They found that six or six percent of
57:17
Speaker 1: new cases where among people who had stayed at home
57:20
Speaker 1: and mostly followed the elimination strategy. So this one guy,
57:25
Speaker 1: this doctor who wrote an article that I read, Dr
57:28
Speaker 1: Stephen Phillips. He said, look, man, like, in addition to
57:32
Speaker 1: all the stuff that we need to be doing to
57:34
Speaker 1: handle this pandemic, let's also create like a really robust
57:39
Speaker 1: data sharing um arrangement, so that we can look back
57:45
Speaker 1: a year or a few years from now and study
57:48
Speaker 1: this and say, oh, actually, these countries followed elimination mixed
57:51
Speaker 1: with the social distancing guidelines, or they followed herd uh
57:56
Speaker 1: immunity pursuit um and they actually came out on top.
57:59
Speaker 1: So that we will know the next time which one
58:02
Speaker 1: actually does work. Taking everything into account the cost in lives,
58:06
Speaker 1: the economic cost, the cost and personal liberty, and find
58:09
Speaker 1: the best way forward. And it probably won't be a
58:12
Speaker 1: panacea where everything works like one thing works for every country,
58:16
Speaker 1: but we'll have a pretty good model hopefully that can
58:20
Speaker 1: be adjusted to suit the individual country that's adopting it. Hopefully.
58:25
Speaker 1: That's if we can get past all of the arguing
58:27
Speaker 1: over whether this is even real or not. Yeah, and
58:32
Speaker 1: I know it's hard right now, but I think that
58:36
Speaker 1: the most dangerous thing right now is to have the
58:38
Speaker 1: mindset of, well, you know what, I'm pretty kg and
58:42
Speaker 1: the weather is nice, and I don't know anyone personally
58:45
Speaker 1: who's gotten it, so I'm just sort of going to
58:47
Speaker 1: ease back into normality here. I think that's that's when
58:52
Speaker 1: the second wave comes and things get worse and it's tough, uh,
58:56
Speaker 1: and everyone is anti and KG myself include did you
59:00
Speaker 1: know I find myself wanting to do things. Um, and
59:03
Speaker 1: it's tough on on kids especially, But I think it's
59:07
Speaker 1: more important now than ever to keep up what's what
59:10
Speaker 1: we're doing. Yeah, we haven't just magically wished the pandemic away.
59:14
Speaker 1: It didn't work. No, and lovely weather. Um, you know
59:18
Speaker 1: to take your walks, get outside, do it safely, but
59:21
Speaker 1: that it is not a reason to be like, well
59:24
Speaker 1: that's old news. Now we can just go back to normal,
59:26
Speaker 1: right right. I saw a post to button it up.
59:30
Speaker 1: I'm sorry we keep going back back and forth on this,
59:32
Speaker 1: but I saw a post that said, um, easing of
59:36
Speaker 1: lockdown doesn't mean that the pandemic has gone away. It
59:39
Speaker 1: means that they have a hospital bed for you now,
59:42
Speaker 1: right exactly? You got anything else? I got nothing else? Man?
59:46
Speaker 1: All right, Well that's it for her community. Hopefully you
59:48
Speaker 1: guys learned something I definitely did from researching all this,
59:52
Speaker 1: and we hope everyone out there is staying safe, insane
59:55
Speaker 1: and uh, hanging in there. That's right. Uh. Since I
59:59
Speaker 1: said hanging in there, it's time chuck for listener mail.
1:00:05
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this thanks from England and a little
1:00:08
Speaker 1: shout out. Hey, guys, I wanted to say thank you,
1:00:12
Speaker 1: thank you for your ongoing efforts with Stuff you Should Know.
1:00:15
Speaker 1: It's been a welcome distraction at work. I, along with
1:00:18
Speaker 1: so many feel like we know you guys so well
1:00:20
Speaker 1: with Stuff you Should Know and Chuck's movie Crush and
1:00:22
Speaker 1: Josh's Into the World podcasts. I hope your families remain
1:00:25
Speaker 1: safe and from my son Dexter and I we wish
1:00:29
Speaker 1: you all the best for yourselves in the future of
1:00:31
Speaker 1: the podcast. Sorry to ramble on, which, by the way, Ben,
1:00:34
Speaker 1: that was not rambling on. That was concise and beautiful.
1:00:38
Speaker 1: But you're from England, so you're very kind. Uh. Sorry
1:00:41
Speaker 1: to ramble On, but I was wondering if you would
1:00:42
Speaker 1: be kind enough to shout out all the UK NHS
1:00:45
Speaker 1: staff that are helping us over here. I have friends
1:00:48
Speaker 1: and family that work for the NHS services and this
1:00:51
Speaker 1: is the only way I know how to say thank you,
1:00:53
Speaker 1: So for sure, Ben, thank you to not only them,
1:00:57
Speaker 1: but to medical providers all over the world who are
1:01:00
Speaker 1: working hard risking their own lives UM, often with UM
1:01:05
Speaker 1: equipment that's being reused when it shouldn't be and uh,
1:01:09
Speaker 1: I'm not going to wade into those waters. But you
1:01:12
Speaker 1: don't have all that you need to do your job
1:01:13
Speaker 1: right now and that's terrible and we should not be
1:01:16
Speaker 1: in this position. But we are so thank you. Uh.
1:01:19
Speaker 1: He also says ps Torquay. We heard from a bunch
1:01:25
Speaker 1: of people on this uh you mentioned the other week
1:01:27
Speaker 1: and I think that Agatha Christie segment we would pronounce
1:01:30
Speaker 1: it tour as in tour bus and key Torquay. It's
1:01:33
Speaker 1: always fun to hear how everyone pronounces these bloody silly
1:01:36
Speaker 1: towns over here. Kind regards. That is from Ben Cleaver
1:01:41
Speaker 1: and Harrowgates, England. Hirogaty Ben. That was such a good
1:01:48
Speaker 1: email that we are now friends. That's right, thank you
1:01:52
Speaker 1: for that. That was much needed man Um, thanks a
1:01:55
Speaker 1: lot for that, and we will very happily shout out
1:01:58
Speaker 1: the entire NHS, especially all of the people who are
1:02:02
Speaker 1: out there on the front lines working to save people's
1:02:04
Speaker 1: lives against COVID nineteen or anything that happens to it
1:02:07
Speaker 1: befallen them. That's right, Um, Thanks again, Ben, And if
1:02:11
Speaker 1: you want to be like Ben and get in touch
1:02:13
Speaker 1: with us, whether you want to tell us to stop
1:02:15
Speaker 1: being so political, or you want to tell us that
1:02:17
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