Please withdraw the first point, or at least define your terms - herd immunity as the term is used by infectious disease specialists is very much an inevitable outcome of a pandemic and you are spreading misinformation.
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Replying to @TAH_Sci @Kit_Yates_Maths
That is incorrect - what many are describing as herd immunity is more commonly termed endemic disease
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Replying to @GidMK @Kit_Yates_Maths
Depends on discipline, but please clarify, otherwise this is just playing with words not explaining the science - at some point the susceptible population will be sufficiently small that transmission slows, agreed? Whether we call this herd immunity or endemicity is secondary.
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Replying to @TAH_Sci @Kit_Yates_Maths
It may slow to some extent, but previous pandemics have ended with (e.g. influenza) large seasonal outbreaks, or ongoing transmission (e.g. Zika) or in quite a number of other ways (HIV, Ebola, etc). Endemic disease is very much not herd immunity
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It is true to say that some aspect of herd immunity comes in to play for endemic diseases, because while we are using the term to describe a finite ending it's actually more complex, but I do not agree that a regularly outbreaking endemic disease would be described as HI
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Replying to @GidMK @Kit_Yates_Maths
Modellers are calling the point when S = 1/R0 the herd immunity threshold, maybe we should change. My main question is, what's the MYTH in the first bullet point? The flu strains in the last four pandemics went endemic & we recognise something fundamental changed when they did.
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Replying to @TAH_Sci @Kit_Yates_Maths
Simple - if we end up with a regularly outbreaking endemic disease - as is the case with most 'common cold' coronaviruses - then we won't have reached herd immunity by any reasonable definition
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Replying to @GidMK @Kit_Yates_Maths
I would say that the myth is then that any form of elimination is possible, and worry that most will read the sentence as saying the opposite, leading to distrust in science when they realise that endemicity was always the long-term outcome.
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Replying to @TAH_Sci @Kit_Yates_Maths
Why is any form of elimination impossible? Unlikely, perhaps, but certainly not impossible. And some places have largely eliminated the disease
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Replying to @GidMK @Kit_Yates_Maths
I just think we have to be honest about how unlikely it is in Europe, realistic prospects for a vaccine etc. I see Professors from other disciplines here who think we could have got to 0 or a vaccine may remove hard choices soon.
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I think being honest and factual is very important
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