[alancalverd]

So the WHO are saying herd immunity?

No. You assert that they are, but you have not shown any evidence to that effect. Here's what they actually wrote:

The percentage of people who need to be immune in order to achieve herd immunity varies with each disease. For example, herd immunity against measles requires about 95% of a population to be vaccinated. The remaining 5% will be protected by the fact that measles will not spread among those who are vaccinated. For polio, the threshold is about 80%. The proportion of the population that must be vaccinated against COVID-19 to begin inducing herd immunity is not known.

which, unlike your libellous assertions, makes sense.

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

So the WHO are saying herd immunity?

No. You assert that they are, but you have not shown any evidence to that effect. Here's what they actually wrote:

The percentage of people who need to be immune in order to achieve herd immunity varies with each disease. For example, herd immunity against measles requires about 95% of a population to be vaccinated. The remaining 5% will be protected by the fact that measles will not spread among those who are vaccinated. For polio, the threshold is about 80%. The proportion of the population that must be vaccinated against COVID-19 to begin inducing herd immunity is not known.

which, unlike your libellous assertions, makes sense.

Libelious?

Measles polio etc do not spread, small pox did not spread, due to the vaccine stopping spread. Corona did. You seem to have skirted around what the who said. As I have quoted before

Quote
Herd immunity against COVID-19 should be achieved by protecting people through vaccination

Man that is some libelous quoting.

[alancalverd]

Libelious?

Libel: a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation; a written defamation.

You have libelled WHO. However in a science forum, I think this is a lesser offence than deliberately misrepresenting elementary epidemiology.

But being a generous soul, I'll have one more attempt at explaining the problem.

Smallpox is principally transmitted by prolonged mechanical contact with a symptomatic person. Therefore it can be controlled by quarantine and vaccination. Quarantine of actual and suspected carriers had been strictly imposed for centuries. After 200 years' development the vaccine was highly effective, and the virus seems to have been fairly stable. Elimination took 70 years.

COVID is an airborne infection transmitted by asymptomatic carriers. Quarantine is therefore difficult to impose except by 100% isolation of the asymptomatic population (i.e. everyone) which apparently is a crime against Yuman Rites. The vaccines developed  within 6 months have limited duration of effectiveness, and the virus evolved rapidly. The herd declined to acquire immunity within 3 years.

[evan_au]

The proportion of the population that must be vaccinated against COVID-19 to begin inducing herd immunity is not known.

You can make some guesstimates based on:
- R₀: The average number of other people who will be infected by one infected individual
- Vaccine Efficacy: The percentage of people who will be protected if they are given the vaccine. Call it E

The original Wuhan virus had R₀ ≈ 2.5, and RNA vaccine efficacy E ≈ 90%.
- The minimum number to be vaccinated = 1-E/R₀ ≈ 1-0.9/2.5 = 64% of the population
- That is why early predictions said that if most people had the vaccine, it would protect the population as a whole against the spread of the virus

Two years later: It is thought that some of the more recent COVID variants have R₀ ≈ 12.
- Against these variants, the original vaccine against Wuhan strain had efficacy E ≈ 40%.
- The minimum number to be vaccinated = 1-E/R₀ ≈ 1-0.4/12 = 97% of the population
- Even well-vaccinated countries have trouble meeting this high target for vaccination
- Throw in the fact that vaccine protection declines with time, so E reduces significantly 5 months after previous vaccination or exposure

Which is why there are now bivalent vaccines available, which provide a higher efficacy against the recent variants
- And people are encouraged to get a booster every 6 months
- And still wear a mask if there is an outbreak in your area.

The COVID emergency may be over, but COVID is not over.
- A significant difference between COVID and smallpox is that smallpox only infects humans
- COVID infects many mammal species, so there is an animal reservoir of the virus that will continue mutating, and potentially jumping back into the human population. That makes elimination practically impossible with our current technologies.

[alancalverd]

The lesson seems to be exactly what one of the UK government experts said at the beginning: overreaction is preferable to underreaction. "If, when it's all over, people ask what the fuss was about, we will have got it right."

Unfortunately sensible overreaction does not include giving taxpayers' money to Tory party donors for faulty or nonexistent goods and services, defining a substantial meal as one that includes lettuce, or discharging infectious patients into nursing homes. 

Having missed an open goal in Brexit negotiations, HM Government scored an own goal by apparently trying to reach a compromise with a virus! 

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

Quote from: Petrochemicals on Yesterday at 23:07:03
Libelious?
Libel: a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation; a written defamation.

You have libelled WHO. However in a science forum, I think this is a lesser offence than deliberately misrepresenting elementary epidemiology.

[Quote from: the WHO]
Herd immunity against COVID-19 should be achieved by protecting people through vaccination
[/quote]

On that basis you are libeling me!

[alancalverd]

Clearly you don't understand the difference between "should" and "will". Not sure that is a permissible defence on a libel charge.

Persons of a scientific mind will have read the entire opening paragraphs of the WHO statement

'Herd immunity', also known as 'population immunity', is the indirect protection from an infectious disease that happens when a population is immune either through vaccination or immunity developed through previous infection. WHO supports achieving 'herd immunity' through vaccination, not by allowing a disease to spread through any segment of the population, as this would result in unnecessary cases and deaths.

Herd immunity against COVID-19 should be achieved by protecting people through vaccination, not by exposing them to the pathogen that causes the disease. Read the Director-General?s 12 October media briefing speech for more detail.

and not simply picked a few words out of context to encourage the Trumpians and Johnsonians of this world.

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

Yes, the Who if to be believed at their position of technical excellence should really make statements such as " world peace requires the end of every conflict" and "world hunger need everybody to be fed". These are obvious statements, given that they are the Who, the statement regarding vaccines is not above being attributed to the vaccines providing herd immunity. If they where just pointing out the obvious they would have no position. Libelous it is not, at least on my part.

[alancalverd]

If they where just pointing out the obvious they would have no position.

But as the foregoing argument shows, it was not obvious to an intelligent, well informed and thoughtful person like yourself, so they had to say it, even if idiots chose to ignore the truth.