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0 pointssomenameforme3y ago0 comments

The etymology of vaccine comes from vacca, which is Latin for cow. Vaccines were originally discovered after finding that milkmaids seemed somehow immune to smallpox, which otherwise not only made people gravely ill but had a mortality rate upwards of 30%. The reason, it was discovered, is that they were regularly exposed to cowpox which sufficiently strengthened their immune systems to provide effective immunity to smallpox. And thus the field was born.

Herd immunity does not make vaccines work better, but is a tertiary effect whereby unvaccinated individuals can receive effective protection simply by living in an area with a high vaccination rate. In extreme cases (such as with smallpox) diseases can even be completely eliminated, but this requires extremely effective vaccines that prevent infection and spread, vaccines that are robust against mutations, and diseases that are unlikely to be able to exist without humans. None of these factors apply to COVID or the vaccines developed for it.

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xyzzy_plugh3y ago

The etymological tidbit is but a distraction from the meat of the issue, which is that you are wrong.

Namely, herd immunity absolutely does make vaccines work better, and is the basis of all vaccine policy in the modern world. I'm not even sure how you can state it's a tertiary effect when it is the primary reason vaccine policies exist.

You're simply spreading misinformation. Herd immunity due to vaccination has resulted in the eradication or near eradication of multiple deadly infectious diseases over the last few centuries. And if not for humans, then look only to farm medicine. Ignoring the power of vaccine policies and mandatory vaccination walks humanity back hundreds of years. Eradicating small pox took hundreds of years. We've been combating COVID-19 for close to three years.

Ask yourself: what qualities of a COVID-19 vaccine would satisfy you?

somenameformeOP3y ago

The entire point is that a smallpox vaccine does provide genuine immunity from smallpox to the point that was so apparent that we could casually observe even the tiniest micro-population (milkmaids) were somehow just completely immune. They didn't get it, they didn't spread it, and their immunity didn't just disappear in a few months or because of a slight genetic variation.

And, also critically, there is no non-human transmission vector for smallpox. It travels exclusively between humans, contrasted against COVID which thrives in both human and animal populations. So if you were unvaccinated and spent all your time around milkmaids - you would not become infected, because there was no vector for the disease to get to you. If 90% of your company were milkmaids, you may get it if one of the other unvaccinated was infected, but the odds would be reduced. This is what herd immunity refers to.

You can observe the effects of 'herd immunity' with the current COVID vaccines in places such as Gibraltar. They achieved greater than 100% vaccination rates, and early on, by vaccinating not only their entire population, but even a large number of migrant workers. They ended up with a death rate of 3,204 per million contrasted against 3,266 for the US. And their infection rate was one of the highest in the world at nearly 60%, but that was probably more so due to extensive testing than greater susceptibility.