Rejoinder to Paul

 I’ll begin by paraphrasing a witty apology once given by Blaise Pascal: I’m sorry that this letter is so long; I didn’t have time to make it shorter.

>>yes the article you linked was also focussed on vaccine induced herd immunity, but so were your own words in your own comment.

Let me just address this point, quickly.

I’ll just go line by line, in my original comment, keeping track of what my “focus” was intended to have been.

Sentence 1 (The rewrite is certainly Orwellian.): Focus: The Orwellian nature of the WHO’s rewrite.

Sentence 2 (But the idea that "herd immunity" is obvious, observational datum is arguably false.): Focus: “herd immunity” of any kind, including any supposed “observational” examples of natural induction.

Sentence 3 (It's a theoretical construct that was postulated in the early 20th century and subsequently co-opted by pharmaceutical-company advertisements.): Focus: “herd immunity” as it was originated postulated – which was in reference to natural induction. (The specific case was an outbreak of measles in Baltimore early in the 20^th century. I gave the citation in a follow-up message. See, again, A. Hedrich, "Monthly estimates of the child population 'susceptible' to measles, 1900–1931, Baltimore, Maryland," American Journal of [Public] Hygiene, vol. 17, pp. 613-636, 1933.)

Sentence 4 (The fact that it's taught in children's biology textbooks is as much an indictment of the education system as any other piece of propaganda used to justify the NWO.): Focus: I was objecting – in my mind – to the fact that “herd immunity” of any kind (including alleged, naturally induced varieties) is being taught as fact.

Sentence 5 (At any rate, 60 years of compulsory vaccinations (at schools) hasn't produced the elusive "herd immunity" for *any* disease.) Focus: unclear. I confessed the difficulty in my follow-up comment. I said: “…I am not personally ‘equating herd immunity with vaccine induced herd immunity’. However, I can understand how you were left with that false impression, since the article I linked to is primarily a discussion of (alleged) vaccine-induced ‘herd immunity.’” So, since this reference was vague, I’ll give you the point. Count this sentence as a reference to vaccine-induced immunity only.

Final count:

·       5 total sentences.

·       Sentences focused on vaccine-induced herd immunity = 1.

·       Sentences not focused on vaccine-induced herd immunity = 4.

·       Sentences focused on naturally induced herd immunity = 3

Therefore, considering all sentences, 1 out of 5 (i.e., 20%) were “…focussed [sic] on vaccine induced herd immunity”.

Considering sentences focused on “herd immunity” of any kind, 1 out of 4 (or 25%) were “…focussed [sic] on vaccine induced herd immunity”.

Either way you cut it, fully 75-80% of my words (by sentence count) were not focused on vaccine-induced herd immunity.

>>But so now that you do refer to both natural and vaccine induced herd immunity, let's go through those points you mention (which are however again taken from an article that addresses vaccine induced herd immunity), …

The main theme of the quoted article is irrelevant because the points I extracted are applicable to (alleged) naturally induced herd immunity.

Additionally, the link was intended to be an expedient way to communicate the points, rather than serve as an authoritative source. In my view, the points rest on the force of the objections themselves.

>>…but firstly I would like to mention that the definition of herd immunity does not state it offers 100% immunity, but that this mechanism eventually makes the virus a negligible problem, …

Part of my skepticism about “herd immunity” – of any sort, including a supposedly “naturally induced” kind – is the lack of rigor in the concept’s characterization. (Indeed, it’s not even clear to me what the definition of “herd immunity” is supposed to be.)

The hand-waving reference to “negligibility” is an example of this. Just how “negligible” does a the risk have to be?

Intuitively, the answer will depend on the virus, the health and identity of the subpopulation, the properties of transmissibility, and much else besides.

As a quick illustration of this point about the looseness of the concept of “negligibility,” consider Ebola. Ebola is, right now – herd immunity or no – a “negligible problem” for me, given my health and geographical location.

>>…but now those points then, starting with:

>>1 yes virusses do mutate, but as also this latest COVID-19 variety of coronavirusses showed, up to 60% of people are already immune to it without ever having been exposed to this particular variety, because we have different mechanisms within our immune systems, one of which are the highly specific antibodies which only develop after exposure to the ONE specific viral variety they target, but then we also have many other layers of defence in our immune systems, one of which are the much less specific T-cells, which in the case of COVID-19 have been trained to respond to ANY type of coronavirus, and although those T-cells were found in the blood of "only" 60% of people, Dr. Bhakdi is convinced they may be found in the bodies of upto 100% of people, as many are stored within our organs and therefore cant be found in our blood.

I’m inclined to have sympathy for much of what you’ve written, above. I think our God-given immune systems are quite powerful, when we support our general health correctly.

Assuming that there is any virus, if I get COVID and don’t die, then my body will produce antibodies against COVID. These antibodies – along with other “layers of defence” (like T-cells) – will tend to protect me, personally, against future encounters with COVID. And the may also assist me in future encounters with any mutated strains, call them COVID*.

To my untutored eyes, you’ve just given a competent, albeit low-level, description of how our individual immune systems function.

In other words, as far as I can see, all your references to our multi-layered defense systems – as well-taken as they may be – pertain to immunity, period. I don’t see any specific relevance to “herd immunity.”

My basic thought was:

·       If herd immunity protects a group of people from Virus x, then Virus x has to persist over time.

·       If Virus x mutates (e.g., by changing into Virus x*), then Virus x doesn’t persist over time.

·       Therefore, if Virus x mutates, then herd immunity doesn’t protect a group from Virus x.

This is true, it seems to me, even if individuals still have multi-layered immune-defense systems and, therefore, have resources enough to fight Virus x*.

But, it’s individuals fighting Virus x* with the individual immune systems. “Herd immunity” doesn’t enter into it.

>>2 yes asymptomatic individuals can shed viral material (and/or exosomes), but as even Dr. Fauci admitted himself: in the history of diseases no pandemic has EVER been driven by asymptomatic carriers.", and this is also confirmed by the 97% of false positives that the PCR test registers at the common cycle threshold of 35 and above as positive, because in that case they are carrying (and therefore MIGHT be shedding) SOME viral material, but the amount is SO little that this viral material can not even be replicated in near perfect laboratory conditions, and that ONLY happens with asymptomatic individuals, because symptomatic individuals have a much higher viral load and therefore dont require such high Ct values to make that PCR test positively.

I think I may have expressed myself inadequately.

Let me try to rephrase my point.

·       If we’re in a good position to say whether herd immunity protects a group, g, of people from Virus x, then we’re in a good position to say who is infected with Virus x and who isn’t infected with Virus x.

·       But if there are asymptomatic carriers of Virus x within g, then we’re not in a good position to say who (in g) is infected and who isn’t.

·       Therefore, if there are asymptomatic carriers of Virus x within g, then we’re in not a good position to say that herd immunity protects people in g from Virus x.

>>3 yes people travel more now than in the 1930's, so in today's global village herd immunity is a global phenomenon.

Well, for one thing, not every virus afflicts wide area of the earth.

Consider, again, Ebola.

(I’m using Ebola because it is an extreme example. It’s a large example, if you like. Sometimes, blowing things up – as when we examine things under a microscope, or through a telescope – makes them easier to see.)

Ebola is a clear example of a virus that has (at least, heretofore) been limited to a particular geographical area.

For another thing, well… let me move to your point #4.

>>4 I don't see how those 2 assumptions are essential for herd immunity to be effective.

Previously, I had quoted Children’s Health Defense to the following effect:

The wooly notion of “herd immunity” depends upon the joint assumptions “...that all members of the population are equally susceptible to infectious disease and that all persons behave identically in spreading disease.”

Now, you say that you “don’t see how those 2 assumptions are essential for herd immunity to be effective.”

To me, this underscores a difficulty I mentioned earlier; namely, the concepts we’re wrestling with are ill defined.

What’s the definition of “herd immunity”?

A quick Google “define herd immunity” yields this: “resistance to the spread of an infectious disease within a population that is based on pre-existing immunity of a high proportion of individuals as a result of previous infection or vaccination.”

Leaving off the bit about vaccination is easy.

We are left with: “resistance to the spread of an infectious disease within a population that is based on pre-existing immunity of a high proportion of individuals as a result of previous infection…”.

But, defined this way, I don’t see that “herd immunity” is anything other than a shorthand way of saying “people who survive infections get immunity; when a lot of people have survived infections, a lot of people are immune.”

I haven’t seen any good reason to think that “herd immunity” has any real or independent existence anywhere.

Maybe “herd immunity” is something like a glint.

Have you ever walked down a street and a sudden burst of light, perhaps sunlight reflected off a car bumper, strikes you in the eye?

You see a glint.

But, if we want to make a list of all the things that really exist in the “glint” case, we’ll enumerate things like the following: the sun, the sun’s rays, the car, the bumper, your eye, etc.

There’s not really a “glint,” anywhere. Plausibly, it’s not as if some extra thing – a “glint” – pops into existence a moment …and then vanishes.

Rather, it’s that when the sun, the bumper, and you are aligned in a particular way, it creates a visual sensation that we refer to as a “glint.”

Now, I’m not saying that “herd immunity” is perspectival.

But what I am saying is that it appears to me that “herd immunity” is – at best – just a way of referring to a state of affairs in which we assign a low probability to some subpopulation getting infected with some pathogen. It’s just a label.

The really existing things, in my view, would be something like these: the population, the subpopulation, the pathogen, the facts about who has so far been infected, the facts about transmission, etc.

Statisticians may then project their estimates regarding some population’s risk of infection from the relevant pathogen, given the facts of transmission.

Now… if “herd immunity” is just a label that gets stuck on a particular kind of probability estimate – namely, one that assigns a low-level risk to a subpopulation’s likelihood of infection – then, fine.

But, I don’t see that “herd immunity” is anything more than a label on certain probability estimates.

So, to your remark that you “…don't see how those 2 assumptions are essential for herd immunity to be effective”, I’d say two things.

Number one, labels aren’t the sorts of things that can be “effective.”

If “herd immunity” is a label, then it’s not “effective” or “ineffective” – though, surely, it may be applied correctly or incorrectly.

Number two, the assumptions are vital for assessing whether that label has been applied correctly.

My contention is that, because most estimates don’t responsibly take the assumptions on board, both high- and low-probability risk estimates are virtually worthless.

Frankly, I find the concept of “herd immunity” to be a mess. In my view, it is badly in need of clarification – or abandonment. But, I won’t hold my breath, since discourse currently is shot through with vague and poorly defined concepts (think: “liberal,” “socialism,” “fascism,” “climate change,” and on and on).

Anyway…

I’ll leave things, here, though.

Thanks for prompting me to give these matters another “think.”

Best,

Matthew Bell