Covid-19 Herd Immunity Threshold Now Expected By Mid-2021

By Jim Reid, chief credit strategist at Deutsche Bank

Monday’s are the new Friday’s. AstraZeneca/Oxford Uni kept the vaccine Monday theme going this morning by revealing their vaccine is effective (70% average) albeit with the tantalising prospect that the technique that suggested 90% effectiveness (half dose first followed by the full dose) could be used for all rather than the 62% effective treatment (two full dosages). In terms of why a half dose might be more effective first it could be with how it better primes the immune system.

Today’s chart of the day updates when we could first vaccinate the vulnerable and then achieve herd immunity in the G10 if we assume that AstraZenenca/Oxford eventually migrates to the 90% efficacy rate, one and a half doses are used, and we assume pre-orders are filled on time for the three vaccines to report so far. Japan and the UK would be first, shortly followed by the US with Australia and the EU lagging a bit but there by around the end of H1. Although logistics may slow things down, remember other vaccines could come on stream and accelerate the process.

For EM much is hanging on AstraZeneca/Oxford. It is substantially cheaper with EM countries being offered it at cost which is part of the reason it has been pre-ordered by so many of them. It has the real opportunity to provide a global solution. If the half dose/full dose technique is proved to be more effective it will also reduce the volume of vaccine used meaning more can go around.

Other advantages are that it uses well known vaccine technology rather than the new m-MRA technique used by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna which may encourage wider uptake, and also that it can be stored at fridge temperature for six months relative to the -70C to -20C for Pfizer, and -20C for Moderna (can be stored in a fridge for a week before use).

Overall the Monday news from the last couple of weeks has been an incredible victory for science and a personal view is that we’ll be getting back very close to normal life in Q2 2021.

Total BS.

Herd immunity is already here. Has been......

“Pandemic is Over” – Former Pfizer Chief Science Officer Says “Second Wave” Faked

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3909082/posts

....In an interview last week (see below) Dr. Yeadon was asked:

“we are basing a government policy, an economic policy, a civil liberties policy, in terms of limiting people to six people in a meeting...all based on, what may well be, completely fake data on this coronavirus?”

Dr. Yeadon answered with a simple “yes.”....

....The scientists write:

“A major component our immune systems is the group of white blood cells called T-cells whose job it is to memorise a short piece of whatever virus we were infected with so the right cell types can multiply rapidly and protect us if we get a related infection. Responses to COVID-19 have been shown in dozens of blood samples taken from donors before the new virus arrived.”

Introducing the idea that some prior immunity to COVID-19 already existed, the authors of “How Likely is a Second Wave?” write:

“It is now established that at least 30% of our population already had immunological recognition of this new virus, before it even arrived...COVID-19 is new, but coronaviruses are not.”

They go on to say that, because of this prior resistance, only 15-25% of a population being infected may be sufficient to reach herd immunity:

“...epidemiological studies show that, with the extent of prior immunity that we can now reasonably assume to be the case, only 15-25% of the population being infected is sufficient to bring the spread of the virus to a halt...”

In the US, accepting a death toll of 200,000, and a survival rate of 99.8%, this would mean for every person who has died, there would be about 400 people who had been infected, and lived. This would translate to around 80 million Americans, or 27% of the population. This touches Yeadon’s and his colleagues’ threshold for herd immunity......

I just read this:

“Herd immunity is achieved by protecting people from a virus, not by exposing them to it.

https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/herd-immunity-lockdowns-and-covid-19

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19): Herd immunity, lockdowns and COVID-19
15 October 2020 | Q&A”
******
Does anyone have an old textbook that would explain herd immunity? I don’t believe what WHO says

>>How can you reach herd immunity if you are locked away in your house?<<

Excellent point. You can’t.

I’m watching four states now: North and South Dakota, Iowa, and Wisconsin.

All four more or less allowed Covid to spread with only minor restrictions, especially the Dakotas.

Using the Worldometer data, the present wave in the Dakotas appears to have peaked about ten days ago, with Iowa and Wisconsin right behind them. What do those four states have in common? All four top the list of confirmed cases per million. In the case of the Dakotas, they’re approaching a confirmed case among every ten residents.

Add in those naturally immune and those who had it but didn’t know it, and it’s conceivable that half the population is now immune. If so, there won’t be another spike after the Thanksgiving holiday in those states, whereas the states that locked down the hardest could experience a spike.

>>I just read this:

“Herd immunity is achieved by protecting people from a virus, not by exposing them to it.”<<

What they are saying is that the preferred way of achieving herd immunity is to protect, i.e., vaccinate, people, not expose them to the actual virus.

Of course, that’s right. Why kill people when there’s a better way? But you can still reach herd immunity without a vaccine.

Except they were wrong.

The R0 for SARS-CoV-2 is 2.5. Herd immunity threshold is 1-1/R0 or 0.6 or 60%. Working backwards from 1,906 deaths per million population with an IFR of 0.65%, New Jersey is already over 29% infected and they’re just starting their second wave. So New Jersey is halfway there. New York is just under halfway to herd immunity. The US as a whole is 20% of the way to herd immunity.

This all ends when safe and effective vaccines are deployed. Thanks to President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, 2 vaccines are being deployed now and two more (Oxford and J&J) are nearing completion. This will all be done and over with by the end of Q1 2021.

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