J
Joe Gwinn
Guest
Considering herd immunity and herd thinning, herd immunity is not
gained solely by acquisition of antibodies, it\'s also by the
\"depletion of the susceptible\". A historical example is useful here.
When the Spanish arrived in the New World in the 16th century, they
brought Smallpox with them. It turned out that the Amerindian
population had slight to no immunity whatsoever, and contemporaneous
accounts were that something like 90% of the Amerindian population
died. This continued well into the 19th century, but with reducing
effect as the Amerindian population slowly gained herd immunity. The
point being that at first, most of the growing immunity was gained by
severe depletion of the susceptible. It\'s an ugly process to be sure.
This is what they often mean when they say that an epidemic has
\"burned itself out\".
Turning to COVID19, most world populations already have considerable
herd immunity, despite all the wailing in the media. How can we know
this? Because if there were zero immunity to COVID19, the story would
parallel that of Smallpox in the Amerindian population, 90%, versus
the few percent we are now observing.
At 90%, the streets would be littered with the dead and dying, with
the living too weak and overwhemed to bury the dead (as happened
during the Black Death in Europe in the 14th century).
..<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death>
Nor is true that antigen tests necessarily predict immunity, for
multiple reasons. Even over ethnically uniform populations, immune
systems differ greatly (due to genetics - too long to describe here),
and a new pathogen will never manage to get everybody. For instance,
the 10% of Amerindians that survived the first wave.
Modern antigen tests look for antibodies to a few antigens, and if
one\'s immune system is looking for some other antigen, than the test
will come back saying \"not immune\", a false negative. Already there
are reports of this happening, but it\'s hard to nail down the precise
cause.
Smallpox in Amerindia: There was another big victim of European
diseases brought to the New World by Cortez in the 16th century, the
Mississippian Culture (which may have been larger than the
Mesoamerican empires (like the Inca and Aztec) we normally hear of):
..<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippian_culture>
The Mississippians were already under stress due to the Little Ice
Age, which was causing widespread crop insufficiency and failure, when
both smallpox and measles arrived, spread by de Soto and his band as
he explored the Mississippi river basin at length in the 1540s. This
was the end of the Mississippian Culture. They never developed
writing or history, so we don\'t know much of the details.
Joe Gwinn
gained solely by acquisition of antibodies, it\'s also by the
\"depletion of the susceptible\". A historical example is useful here.
When the Spanish arrived in the New World in the 16th century, they
brought Smallpox with them. It turned out that the Amerindian
population had slight to no immunity whatsoever, and contemporaneous
accounts were that something like 90% of the Amerindian population
died. This continued well into the 19th century, but with reducing
effect as the Amerindian population slowly gained herd immunity. The
point being that at first, most of the growing immunity was gained by
severe depletion of the susceptible. It\'s an ugly process to be sure.
This is what they often mean when they say that an epidemic has
\"burned itself out\".
Turning to COVID19, most world populations already have considerable
herd immunity, despite all the wailing in the media. How can we know
this? Because if there were zero immunity to COVID19, the story would
parallel that of Smallpox in the Amerindian population, 90%, versus
the few percent we are now observing.
At 90%, the streets would be littered with the dead and dying, with
the living too weak and overwhemed to bury the dead (as happened
during the Black Death in Europe in the 14th century).
..<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death>
Nor is true that antigen tests necessarily predict immunity, for
multiple reasons. Even over ethnically uniform populations, immune
systems differ greatly (due to genetics - too long to describe here),
and a new pathogen will never manage to get everybody. For instance,
the 10% of Amerindians that survived the first wave.
Modern antigen tests look for antibodies to a few antigens, and if
one\'s immune system is looking for some other antigen, than the test
will come back saying \"not immune\", a false negative. Already there
are reports of this happening, but it\'s hard to nail down the precise
cause.
Smallpox in Amerindia: There was another big victim of European
diseases brought to the New World by Cortez in the 16th century, the
Mississippian Culture (which may have been larger than the
Mesoamerican empires (like the Inca and Aztec) we normally hear of):
..<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippian_culture>
The Mississippians were already under stress due to the Little Ice
Age, which was causing widespread crop insufficiency and failure, when
both smallpox and measles arrived, spread by de Soto and his band as
he explored the Mississippi river basin at length in the 1540s. This
was the end of the Mississippian Culture. They never developed
writing or history, so we don\'t know much of the details.
Joe Gwinn
