Last update: Tuesday 2/1/22
Herd immunity is not possible under Omicron
During the first few months in 2021, a fully vaccinated person was thought to be unlikely to become infected, i.e., they were immune. And if a high enough percentage of the population achieved immunity, e.g., 90 percent, the small percentage of the population that was not immune would have been unlikely to become infected. Why?
Because a recently infected visitor would have been unlikely to come into close contact with the few people who were not immune during the two or three weeks during which the infected visitor was contagious. In other words, the few people who were not immune would be protected by the immune super majority who "surrounded" them, a super majority who could not become infected, a super majority who therefore could not pass the virus onto the vulnerable minority. This indirect protection was called "herd immunity". Achieving herd immunity became the goal of our pandemic management efforts.
Because a recently infected visitor would have been unlikely to come into close contact with the few people who were not immune during the two or three weeks during which the infected visitor was contagious. In other words, the few people who were not immune would be protected by the immune super majority who "surrounded" them, a super majority who could not become infected, a super majority who therefore could not pass the virus onto the vulnerable minority. This indirect protection was called "herd immunity". Achieving herd immunity became the goal of our pandemic management efforts.
Unfortunately, the sudden emergence of the Delta variant in the summer of 2021 made it impossible for any community to achieve herd immunity because the Delta variant could evade our vaccines. A substantial share of new Delta infections were "breakthrough" cases. These fully vaccinated breakthroughs could infect unvaccinated persons, so they became a potential threat instead of a protective wall around the unvaccinated.
The even more sudden emergence of Omicron in November 2021 made a bad situation much worse because Omicron was at least twice as transmissible as Delta. The small good news about Omicron was that it wasn't as lethal as Delta. Unfortunately, the smaller percentage of its new infections that were severe still resulted in larger increases in hospitalizations and deaths because at least twice as many people were being infected. These increases threatened to overwhelm our health care systems before the surges in various states began to subside.
Living with the virus by achieving background immunity
Omicron's arrival two years into the pandemic's restrictions greatly intensified the Covid fatigue that most of us were suffering and thereby kicked ongoing discussions of our need to shift our goal from defeating the virus to learning how to live with the virus into a much higher gear. Not surprisingly, as an early proponent of booster shots to greatly to reduce the severity of new infections, Dr. Fauci has became one of the most insightful leaders of these discussions.
His proposed new goal for our pandemic management efforts is to achieve background immunity i.e., a level of immunity in our communities derived from vaccinations, boosters, and recovery from infection that would allow us to hold hospitalizations and deaths in future surges down to acceptable levels via selective mitigation, extensive testing, and antiviral drugs. Acceptable levels of hospitalizations and deaths would be levels within the limits of our healthcare systems comparable to a flu, levels that would allow us to provide normal treatments for the victims of other illnesses as well as for Covid-19.
Omicron's arrival two years into the pandemic's restrictions greatly intensified the Covid fatigue that most of us were suffering and thereby kicked ongoing discussions of our need to shift our goal from defeating the virus to learning how to live with the virus into a much higher gear. Not surprisingly, as an early proponent of booster shots to greatly to reduce the severity of new infections, Dr. Fauci has became one of the most insightful leaders of these discussions.
His proposed new goal for our pandemic management efforts is to achieve background immunity i.e., a level of immunity in our communities derived from vaccinations, boosters, and recovery from infection that would allow us to hold hospitalizations and deaths in future surges down to acceptable levels via selective mitigation, extensive testing, and antiviral drugs. Acceptable levels of hospitalizations and deaths would be levels within the limits of our healthcare systems comparable to a flu, levels that would allow us to provide normal treatments for the victims of other illnesses as well as for Covid-19.
- The podcast audio for Dr. Fauci's interview with the NY Times, "We need to talk about Covid, Part 2", 1/31/22, can be found ==> Here
Note: This page contains a link to the transcript of this interview.
In his interview with the NY Times, Dr. Fauci took great pains to stress that "we're not there yet", i.e., our immunity via vaccines, boosters, and recovery from infection has not yet risen to the required level, so we must continue our efforts to get more people vaccinated. Listeners to the podcast will also recognize that we have yet to produce a large enough testing capacity, distributed enough high grade masks (N95, KN95), nor a created a large enough supply of antiviral drugs.
But when we do get there, our lives could take on normal manifestations, e.g., employees could return to work in their workplaces (if they wanted to) without masks; we could attend indoor restaurants and indoor entertainments without masks; and our children and college students would have shorter isolation periods if they became infected in face-to-face classes whereas others could "test to stay" in face-to-face classes if they were exposed to infected students.
The writer of this blog note could only find fault with one aspect of Dr. Fauci's vision: his explicit reference to national metrics in the determination of "acceptable levels" of hospitalizations and deaths, the same one-size-fits-all national straitjacket that the CDC has imposed on its guidance again and again throughout the pandemic.
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Links to related notes on this blog:
- "The CDC needs to be reorganized from top to bottom ... Part 1 (Trump's Disdain)", Last updated: 1/22/22
- "The CDC needs to be reorganized from top to bottom ... Part 2 (Biden's Turnaround Artist)", Last update: 1/11/22
- "Avoiding the CDC's systemic blunders and flip flops -- UPDATED (again)", Last update: 1/7/22
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