If these figures are right, we cannot achieve herd immunity unless we have at least 80 to 90% of the population with immunity via vaccinations. The hurdle has been raised considerably compared to conventional strains.

I'm not sure 'immunity' is an appropriate term, as people with vaccinations do still catch Covid, just as people who have had flu vaccinations get flu, but with milder symptoms.

The UK government appear to have a hybrid strategy - as many vaccinations/boosters as possible, allowing Delta to run through the socially motile with minimal/flu-level deaths. With the additional drugs now in use to reduce severe symptoms, it seems to be a viable option. It may be the only option.

It will have to run through populations, preferably vaccinated ones, as all bugs do. Lockdowns will simply slow it down and spin everything out, with consequential damage in a host of other areas - education, the economy, mental health, political division etc. Vaccinate as many as you can, as fast as you can, and then let it run its course. Anyone who is particularly vulnerable should take extra care and get extra support.

I'm not sure 'immunity' is an appropriate term, as people with vaccinations do still catch Covid, just as people who have had flu vaccinations get flu, but with milder symptoms.

Why would it not be appropiate? what you describe is the usual situation for many other infectious diseases, for which you get immunity either by getting infected of by vaccination, there is nothing unusual or special about COVID. Even immune people commonly get the infection, may even develop mild symptoms, but are protected from the dangerous complications (encephalitis, paralysis, pneumonia, etc.)

Someone who claims vaccines deliver "immunity" is not an "expert" at all,

That applies more to someone that failed to understand how the word is used as a medical term.

Another country (besides India) to add Ivermectin to it's virus overrun country

There is no evidence that ivermectin had any importance on the development of the pandemic in either country, just people that baselessly say so without even a minimal epidemiological study to corroborate it. Japan and most countries with a working scientific community can easily determina the scientific evidence for many of the drugs pushed by antiscientific groups do not have actual evidence of helping against the infection, and bring instead extra risks.

Why doesn't Japan offer this drug, for all of it's residents, so this can end?

It does, but doesn't publicise the fact so most people don't know about it - including most doctors.

If it's any consolation, a trial has been approved to start on Oct 15 to test it out after some delays due to protocol issues. It'll be conducted on people with early-stage symptoms, unlike the late-stage symptom trials designed to fail.

It does, but doesn't publicise the fact so most people don't know about it - including most doctors.

If you think doctors need to see something publicized in the media to know about therapeutic options you are terribly misinformed, the reality is that fortunately most doctors are good enough at evaluating scientific information to understand when something completely ineffective is being pushed by groups with interests different from public health.

As long as the scientific consensus is that those drugs have no efficacy demonstrated doctors that act professionally will abstain from risking the health of their patients for no actual benefit.

@Virus: I agree all the time and wish people would listen to you. I should have become a doctor like many in my family, but I had other dreams. But my family members sound logical like you and well informed. Thanks and Aloha

If it's so ineffective, why are they bothering to allow the trial?

There are many reasons, none of them scientific. Japan is famous for doing tiny replications that bring no extra scientific knowledge just so they can say they did them. It happens a lot with drugs or vaccines, and the results are consistenly the same, they find out again what everybody else did some months, years or even decades before.

One problem with antiscientific people is that they think credentials replace evidence, that is not the case. Anybody can prove a Nobel prize winner wrong if they have more or better evidence. There is no need to know better, after all nobody has even said that they expect to find anything different from the rest of the world.

There are many reasons, none of them scientific. Japan is famous for doing tiny replications that bring no extra scientific knowledge just so they can say they did them. It happens a lot with drugs or vaccines, and the results are consistenly the same, they find out again what everybody else did some months, years or even decades before.

That may be true to a point, but there are loads of doctors and scientists in hospitals and clinics around the world who have had very good and demonstrable results with this drug in combination with other medications. Otherwise why would they bother flogging a dead horse? Doctors on the ground, especially in busy hospitals, don't have the luxury of time or resources to dabble with things that don't get results. Especially doctors who actually care about their patients.

And speaking of flogging a dead horse, consensus is only valid up to a point as well. Consensus can be a terrible stifler to innovation, and it can take years for other scientists to overcome their own pride and vested interests to accept evidence that contradicts what they think. Innumerable discoveries have been made by people going against the consensus by using the scientific method, whether it be medicine, physics etc. Einstein is one great example. In the other direction, Ancel Keys produced some very questionable science about fat that became the consensus opinion for decades, causing immeasurable damage to people's health. Only in recent years is it being seriously challenged and debunked.

But hey, just keep parroting the "consensus" (a false label in this case anyway - it's simply a narrative) if it makes you feel better. Or consider opening our mind just a crack.

Yes, 80%-90% is alone already quite a hurdle. But in addition we get into those problems because of the time shifted vaccinations. That means we have newly and fully vaccinated people with highest possible immunity, but also down to people with very reduced immunity after six or eight or whatever number of months, for example shortly before a next booster shot. 90% vaccinations isn’t therefore obviously not sufficient as the broad immunity is always much lower on average. In theory we now would need for example 90% willing to be vaccinated or boosted, and that all without a big time shift, means vaccinating everyone within one or two weeks. Logistically in most countries quite unrealistic…

That may be true to a point, but there are loads of doctors and scientists in hospitals and clinics around the world who have had very good and demonstrable results with this drug in combination with other medications.

And they choose not to present them, or do it with the worst kind of epidemiological analysis available? because that is exactly what is the "evidence" available, and that is obviously easily surpassed by actual scientific reports accumulating the data from dozens of studies and that until this point have found nothing of value on those drugs.

Why do you think a third of all the antibiotics used medically every year in the US are for things that antibiotics serve no purpose? for the same reason, not everybody is actually prepared to do their work professionally, this should be expected, because it happens everywhere, but that justifies in no way their mistakes, science have low quality data and high quality data, if they can only produce the low kind that is useful but in no way disproves the high quality one.

But hey, just keep parroting the "consensus" (a false label in this case anyway - it's simply a narrative) if it makes you feel better. Or consider opening our mind just a crack.

The consensus is true and clear, every single time I ask you to bring one big, important institution of the whole world that supports your believes you bring absolutely nothing, that is because the consensus exist and it points exactly to the opposite direction. Obviously it can be wrong, but to begin to consider this you would need at least the same amount and quality of evidence that support that consensus, trying to say it with terribly low quality data is just trying to force something that you would like to be true, even if the reality contradicts it.

What a load of bunk! Natural immunity is already at high levels in japan due to the fact they haven't followed the draconian lock down mantras of other countries. Ippso facto herd immunity has already been reached which is visible by the declining case numbers!

No need to vaccinate unborn children just for the sake of keeping the hypochondriacs happy!

"No need to vaccinate unborn children just for the sake of keeping the hypochondriacs happy!"

I should have added or to keep the pharma execs or their representatives on these forums happy...as well

If these figures are right, we cannot achieve herd immunity unless we have at least 80 to 90% of the population with immunity via vaccinations. 

Misinformation

If these figures are right, we cannot achieve herd immunity unless we have at least 80 to 90% of the population with immunity via continuous booster vaccinations. 

Fixed

If these figures are right, we cannot achieve herd immunity unless we have at least 80 to 90% of the population with immunity via vaccinations. 

Illogical

One can not be immune from Covid with continuous booster vaccinations. natural immunity offers the only path to herd immunity.

What a load of bunk! Natural immunity is already at high levels in japan due to the fact they haven't followed the draconian lock down mantras of other countries

For that you would need to stop seeing waves of infection, which obviously are still present, vaccination help a lot but there is nothing to indicate immunity (of any type) is close to the levels necessary to stop transmission. Unless you can bring an actual scientific source to prove what you believe it can be discarded as irrelevant.

No need to vaccinate unborn children just for the sake of keeping the hypochondriacs happy

Risks of death, preterm birth, low weight of the product, etc. increase over 20 times because of the COVID infection, just because you want to call those victims hyphondriacs do not make their actual health problems disappear, just evidence that you have no empathy for them.

If these figures are right, we cannot achieve herd immunity unless we have at least 80 to 90% of the population with immunity via continuous booster vaccinations. 

That is a "fix" that makes the statement wrong, because of two reasons, the first is that boosters are not being thought as necessary for all vaccines, nor for the general population (that get adequate protection even now without need of boosters), and second because there have been already vaccines that require a single boost months or even years after the priming doses without those vaccines needing these boosters to be continous.

So "continous boosters" is a need that comes from your imagination only, and natural immunit is not the only path, it is just the worst path to herd immunity, because even if boosters were continously necessary as you imagina that would mean also the natural infection would produce only short term immunity, so you would be replacing boosters with continous re-infections, which are much more risky.

ah yes the vaccines are better than natural immunity argument...didn't see that one coming...

Especially from the Pharma company's biggest "supporter"

Waves of infection won't stop as they similarly don't stop for influenza. The difference being now that this has moved from Novel to Mundane the "vaccinate anything that moves" mantra has lost its shine! Not that it was that shiny to begin with...

That is a "fix" that makes the statement wrong, because of two reasons, the first is that boosters are not being thought as necessary for all vaccines,

You seem to make comments like a computer with no capacity for any forethought. You have made enough errors in this way of thinking that maybe a little reflection is needed. I don’t need a scientific consensus to tell me it’s going to get colder in the next month.

ah yes the vaccines are better than natural immunity argument...didn't see that one coming...

Especially from the Pharma company's biggest "supporter"

But on the other side trying to change the topic from a valid argument towards the people that say it was terribly easy to predict, it is a very common thing used by people when confronted against an argument that they can't defeat.

If waves of infection do not stop that means herd immunity has not been reached, by definition. Your understanding about what it means to reach that level is simply mistaken.

You seem to make comments like a computer with no capacity for any forethought. You have made enough errors in this way of thinking that maybe a little reflection is needed. I don’t need a scientific consensus to tell me it’s going to get colder in the next month.

Then again, just saying that something you don't like is an error without giving no reason whatsoever to demonstrate this is not really an argument, things that you can't demonstrate as wrong still stand as valid, even if that means you are mistaken.

Herd immunity will never happen, this virus mutates too fast and is a lot more dangerous than influenza. One can go from no symptoms to dead in seven to ten days, this is not the case with influenza.