Also, how exactly would you prove herd immunity when we don't know the antibody threshold required? We also don't know that antibodies are the primary mode of immunity- could be T cells. So I'm not sure what kind of analysis you are looking for.
So first you wrote the argument of "look at this trend, it must be herd immunity because I can't think of any other reason for it". And when someone points that out your response is "of course that's the extent of the analysis I've done, I can't think of another analysis that would prove the point".
[Note: You can edit your post here for a short time. It is useful to add some small afterthought or a small correction. Just don't abuse these feature to change completely the meaning of your comments, specially if someone has replied.]
[EDIT: For major amends. Mark it so it is clear that you made a change.]
Reading my comment again, it is confusing. I didn't want to say that you edited your comments.
I was only suggesting that you can edit your comments. Instead of posting two comments as replies, like here, you can edit your first comment and add the second part in the same comment.
Can you think of another reason? The states with above ~30% infection rates are now trending down. They are not being more careful. Sometimes logic is that simple.
Dozens of reasons. Biology rarely ever is so simple.
- Mutation/Infectiousness changes
- Behavioral changes
- Testing changes (more/less/precision)
- Reporting Changes (like changing all reporting from CDC)
- Political interference/ Wishful thinking
- Non-linearity (the virus has tagged the easier victims and is now moving slower into the more distanced population)
- Seasonal patterns
- Any combination of the above.
Frankly, its insanity to assume herd immunity at this point in time, especially with uncertainty about length of immune protection from primary and t-cell response.
Its a virus, it writes the rules and we barely have managed to decipher some of them, this article reads like a perverted Mission Accomplished on an aircraft carrier.
So I think we have ruled out those reasons. I could go into each one of them but that would take a while. That is with the exception of data corruption by politicians-- I am concerned about that and planning to look further into it. "It writes the rules and we barely have managed to decipher some of them"- this I strongly disagree with. The media has portrayed it that way. But from the science community perspective, it hasn't been mysterious at all. It's just that the media and the politicians are translating to the public- and those translations are highly corrupt and motivated by money.
"they are not being more careful" is likely a flawed assumption. Many, many more people are wearing masks now. Where I am, the % of people wearing masks went from low single digits in april/may to 90%+. I've visited a couple different cities and it's the same - massive increase in mask wearing. People are being more careful in many places.
I think mask wearing and social distancing is slowing the spread in some places. CA and OH for example have seen a slow when more stringent policies were put into place. But I don't think Louisiana and Florida are being more careful and they are seeing a drop in cases.
Observational research is not good enough for public policy. Look at the spike in cases in Japan. It completely destroys the correlation.
> What do scientists do in the face of uncertainty on the value of global interventions? Usually, they seek an answer with adequately designed and swiftly implemented clinical studies as has been partly achieved with pharmaceuticals. We consider it is unwise to infer causation based on regional geographical observations as several proponents of masks have done. Spikes in cases can easily refute correlations, compliance with masks and other measures is often variable, and confounders cannot be accounted for in such observational research.
OK I was in Ocean City NJ at the beach a month ago. This is just not true. I was in the women's bathroom- no masks, 6 inches from other people, no airflow. I'd say about 1/10 wearing masks. People crowded together.
The fundamental issue I see in the piece is a conflation of what herd immunity means. Normally, it's used in the context of normal activity levels - as in, if everyone went back to normal pre-pandemic routines, would we see cases go up or down? But, you're using it in the context of current activity levels, which are still significantly different than pre-pandemic activity levels.
All you are effectively saying is that, given the current mitigation measures and given the current level of population immunity, R is less than 1 in these places. But, that's not really a revelation.
What one would expect is likely to be the case is that some areas have had enough exposure that it has a non-zero impact on their current R, as in NY and NJ. This means there may be more buffer to relax mitigation measures without seeing R rise above 1, but it doesn't necessarily mean they are at herd immunity.