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GidMK's profile
Health Nerd
Health Nerd
Health Nerd
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@GidMK

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Health NerdVerified account

@GidMK

Epidemiologist. Writer (Guardian, Observer etc). "Well known research trouble-maker". PhDing at @UoW Host of @senscipod Email gidmk.healthnerd@gmail.com he/him

Sydney, New South Wales
theguardian.com/profile/gideon…
Joined November 2015

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    1. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 6 Apr 2020

      Health Nerd Retweeted

      So, yet again we have a wild misrepresentation of "herd immunity" as a solution to the coronavirus pandemic This is simply not the case. If herd immunity comes into play, we will have already seen one of our worst-case scenarios played out in real life 1/n https://twitter.com/vanOnselenP/status/1247274160478273536 …

      Health Nerd added,

      This Tweet is unavailable.
      3 replies 35 retweets 85 likes
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    2. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 6 Apr 2020

      2/ Herd immunity is a simple concept It simply defines the situation where enough people are immune to a disease that even if people do get sick, they can't spread the infection

      1 reply 2 retweets 9 likes
      Show this thread
    3. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 6 Apr 2020

      3/ The Guardian produced a great model of how herd immunity works here If enough people are immune, the disease spreads a bit, then stops https://www.theguardian.com/society/ng-interactive/2015/feb/05/-sp-watch-how-measles-outbreak-spreads-when-kids-get-vaccinated …

      1 reply 1 retweet 10 likes
      Show this thread
    4. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 6 Apr 2020

      4/ Herd immunity is a function of the basic reproduction number of a disease (R0). This is the average number of people each sick person infects in a totally vulnerable population For measles, this number is 18 Influenza is roughly 1.5 For #COVID19, R0 is around 3

      1 reply 2 retweets 13 likes
      Show this thread
    5. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 6 Apr 2020

      5/ As the population gets immune to a disease, the effective reproduction number (R) starts to drop There's a simple mathematical equation to work out by how much: R = R0*% susceptible

      1 reply 1 retweet 9 likes
      Show this thread
    6. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 6 Apr 2020

      6/ For a disease to stop spreading, each person has to - on average - infect fewer than 1 person Therefore, the R has to drop below 1

      1 reply 0 retweets 11 likes
      Show this thread
    7. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 6 Apr 2020

      6.5/ And remember, there's NO VACCINE FOR COVID19 (yet), so all immunity is conferred by getting an infection and recovering That carries very serious risks!

      2 replies 1 retweet 17 likes
      Show this thread
    8. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 6 Apr 2020

      7/ So let's consider what would be required for R to drop below 1 in this context R0 = 3 If 10% of the population is immune to COVID-19, this will be reduced to R = 3*(1-0.1) = 2.7 The disease still spreads

      1 reply 0 retweets 8 likes
      Show this thread
    9. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 6 Apr 2020

      8/ Luckily, this is just maths, so we can work it out We want R to be below 1 This makes it into a simple equation: R<1

      1 reply 0 retweets 7 likes
      Show this thread
    10. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 6 Apr 2020

      9/ Substituting in for R, we get: R<1 => R0*(% susceptible)<1 => %susceptible<1/R0 Solving for R0 = 3, we get %susceptible<33.3% In other words, as long as more than 33% of the population is susceptible, the disease spreads

      1 reply 0 retweets 13 likes
      Show this thread
      Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 6 Apr 2020

      10/ To put it another way, we need 67% (2/3) of the population to be IMMUNE to the disease for it to stop spreading This is what's known as the HERD IMMUNITY THRESHOLD

      6:01 PM - 6 Apr 2020
      • 2 Retweets
      • 15 Likes
      • mjau Zimmy the 2nd 🇿🇼🇸🇪🇪🇺👨‍🏭👨‍🔧🎣🍺🚜🏞🏝🗻🏕 Antifa Snack Manager ^..^ Ellen LeMosy David N. Andrews MEd CPSE 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 an Okie AuD transplantrockstar LlamaOfAusangate Patricia Rosewell
      2 replies 2 retweets 15 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 6 Apr 2020

          Health Nerd Retweeted Health Nerd

          11/ But that brings us back to this earlier point The only way, currently, to be immune to the disease is to GET SICK and then GET BETTERhttps://twitter.com/GidMK/status/1247328596890275840?s=20 …

          Health Nerd added,

          Health NerdVerified account @GidMK
          6.5/ And remember, there's NO VACCINE FOR COVID19 (yet), so all immunity is conferred by getting an infection and recovering That carries very serious risks!
          Show this thread
          1 reply 1 retweet 11 likes
          Show this thread
        3. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 6 Apr 2020

          12/ So what we're really saying is that, for the herd immunity threshold to be reached, ~67% OF THE POPULATION has to be infected That is a HUGE problem

          1 reply 0 retweets 14 likes
          Show this thread
        4. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 6 Apr 2020

          13/ How much of a problem? Well, assuming a relatively generous infection-fatality rate of 0.3%, if 67% of Australians get infected with #COVID19 then ~50,000 people die A high price to pay indeed

          2 replies 1 retweet 13 likes
          Show this thread
        5. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 6 Apr 2020

          14/ Taking more realistic estimates of the fatality rate, we might see 100,000 or more people die before reaching this point Most would, I think, regard that as the most abject of failures

          2 replies 0 retweets 14 likes
          Show this thread
        6. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 6 Apr 2020

          15/ By definition, herd immunity is not and can never be a solution to #COVID19, unless we are comfortable with a staggering death toll fin

          5 replies 5 retweets 33 likes
          Show this thread
        7. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 6 Apr 2020

          16/ IMPORTANT ADDENDUM: "never" is the wrong word in the previous tweet. If we get a vaccine, or if the death toll drops significantly (due perhaps to better treatments) herd immunity becomes a very viable option

          3 replies 1 retweet 17 likes
          Show this thread
        8. End of conversation
        1. New conversation
        2. Beth Skwarecki‏Verified account @BethSkw 6 Apr 2020
          Replying to @GidMK

          So if we have a CFR we can calculate how many people need to die to accomplish this

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
        3. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 6 Apr 2020
          Replying to @BethSkw

          I give a rough estimate further down, but yes pretty much. It's somewhere between 0.2-0.7% of the entire population depending on the 'true' IFR

          1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
        4. Show replies

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