WEBVTT - How Herd Immunity Works 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:03.400 Welcome to Stuff. You should know a production of My 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:12.760 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:15.800 I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryan over there, 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:19.239 and uh, it's just the two of us again. But 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:23.079 I'm getting used to it. How about you? I am. 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:27.120 I am sweating in our studio by myself, Like you're 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:32.600 nervous now. I'm hot because the studio is hot and 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:35.000 you know, I know we've been buzz marketing enough, but 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:38.960 the internet is only working in our studio for some reason. 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:43.640 And uh, I ate some of that spicy beef ramen 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:49.680 in this hot room. Yeah, that's a dangerous combo. I 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:51.319 didn't think to open the door, So I'm just like 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:54.680 sitting here pouring sweat out everywhere. Well here's the thing. 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:58.240 You could go totally dong out like Spartacus if you 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:01.480 wanted to, because you're the only one there. People have 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:04.400 been talking about dong out lately. To the movie crush page. Yeah, 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:07.839 well it's a pretty hilarious term. But just please put down, 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:11.120 like some newspaper or something on the chair before you 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:14.399 sit on the bare bottomed Okay. Oh, and by the way, 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:18.080 speaking of movie crush, you. I think this is going 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:21.200 to come out the day after your movie Crush Mini 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:24.880 Crush appearance next week. Yeah, I'm excited about it. Man, 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:27.640 I'm a little nervous. So No, it's gonna be great. 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:29.479 People are gonna love it. So if you don't listen 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:32.840 to the show, maybe listen to this one episode and 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:37.080 then forget about the show again. If you want always 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:40.440 stick around, maybe boost the numbers a tad. But it 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:42.680 was a lot of fun, and I think I think 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:45.880 people would want to hear your appearances. What I really 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:49.120 appreciated you having me on it was it was a 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:53.840 lot of fun. It was fun professional at hosting. Hey, 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:56.040 we turns out we know what we're doing here, don't 0:01:56.040 --> 0:02:01.440 we don't? Uh? Speaking of which, I think we should 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:03.600 frontload this episode with a little bit of a c 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:08.400 o A Um. If you are a pretty hard line 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:13.320 anti vaxer, or if you believe in things like planned 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:18.639 demmi or that Bill Gates created the coronavirus for population control, 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:21.400 you may not want to listen to this because we're 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:26.440 gonna bring you hard and leaned facts, lean and mean, 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:28.920 depending on your point of view. I think that's a 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:31.040 good It's a good c O a. I think that 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:35.000 maybe you got rid of two of the hate mail 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:38.560 we're gonna get, so thank you for that. Yeah, we'll see. 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:42.840 I mean I think, uh, it just bears saying, just why, why, 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:46.960 why rile yourself all up? Just let's listen to your 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:50.720 echo chamber podcasts that validate what you think maybe or 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:55.400 or or or or calm down and just hear us 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:58.120 out and see what you think. Well, that's always a 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:02.399 you know, it's always an option. You know. So we're 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:08.000 not even talking necessarily just about vaccines or anti vaccines. Um, 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:11.480 it's almost like a side thing to this whole thing, 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:16.960 but it's definitely still, um, very much intertwined with it. Um, 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:21.280 we're talking about her can't or you can't not talk 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:23.640 about vaccines if you're going to talk about her immunity 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:28.320 right now, because with with her immunity, especially in the 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:31.120 twenty one century, there's basically two ways of getting there, 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:36.880 and one of them is a robust vaccination program. That's right. 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:40.720 And if you don't know what her immunity is, then um, 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:42.800 then you're probably just fine. You've been living under a 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:45.040 rock and you're not near any other humans or the internet. 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:48.680 You're still protected though that's right. Herd immunity those the 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:52.280 principle uh, sort of in its simplest form of safety 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:54.720 and numbers and if you have a lot of people 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.560 or enough people, because there's actual math involved to figuring 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:00.800 that out. It's not just a guess. If you have 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:04.600 enough people that are immune to a virus. Uh. And 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:07.120 it can be like you said, through vaccination or through 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:11.200 having lived through the disease and then having antibodies, then 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:17.000 the population is protected from that disease even if they 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:20.040 are an immune. That's that's the idea that so many 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:23.559 a certain threshold of people are immune that even people 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:28.320 that choose not to vaccinate can hop on that wagon, right. Um. 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:30.839 And it's not even like you hop on the wagon, 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:33.960 like you are on the wagon just by vulture being 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:36.919 alive in the society or culture. Right. So that's a 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:39.480 good point. Um. There's a really easy way of understanding 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:44.159 it that Molly Edmonds used in Um the House Stuff 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:47.520 Works episode Unheard Immunity that if you pretend you're at 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:50.160 a bowling alley and each person has their own lane, 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:53.160 and this is basically that bowling alley lane is like 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:57.040 there their bubble that they live in, their work their 0:04:57.040 --> 0:05:00.360 home and everything, and they don't encounter anybody else. That's 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:03.719 kind of like Wally, But with bowling. If the first 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:08.880 person on lane one comes down with say the flu um, 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:11.279 he can very easily pass it on to the woman 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:14.159 in lane two. If she's not immune to the flu, 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:16.800 she will contract it and pass it on to the 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:18.760 person in lane three, and so on and so forth, 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:22.760 and it'll just keep going and eventually people will develop anybodies. 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.200 Some of those people will die, most will survive, uh, 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:28.760 and the flu will have a hard time getting through 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:33.240 that population a second time around. But if the woman 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:37.200 in lane two is already immunized to that flu strain, 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:40.920 say through like a vaccine or something, then it's not 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:44.120 going to transmit from the first guy in lane one 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:47.360 to her, or it's certainly not going to transmit beyond her. 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:51.520 So she's protected everybody in lanes three through ten just 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:55.000 by virtue of having been immune to that flu virus. 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:59.400 It's stopped with her, and that's the point of her immunity. 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:02.960 That's the whole that's the basis of the whole thing. Yeah, 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:05.080 And if we want to stick with bowling parlance, then 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:07.599 that means that that lady is bowling strikes. She's throwing 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:11.159 strikes strikes, not even seven ten splits, which she could 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:14.039 if she wanted to. That's how she is. Yeah, the 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:18.200 perfect game, right. I remember that dumb joke when I 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:20.640 was a little about You know, you learn the stupidest 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:22.760 jokes when you're a kid because they have to be 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:24.599 so dumb. A kid can understand him, I think, I 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:27.159 think so. But about the the guy who bowled a 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:29.960 three hundred and one and you're like, you can't bowl 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:32.240 a three d and one, Well, you can't bowl a 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:38.080 three hundred and lose, man. I know. That's how bad 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:39.560 it was, and that's how much it stuck with me. 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:43.400 Did you get that from highlights? I don't know where 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:45.320 I got that. It's pretty bad. It sounds like a 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:48.640 playground joke. I think so. But I think you beat 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:51.919 up in the playground even with that one. Yeah. So 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:55.400 let's talk about her community some more. We talked about 0:06:55.440 --> 0:07:00.160 the two ways natural exposure and vaccinations, and if we're 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:04.080 going back pre vaccination and talking about human history. Um, 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:06.800 the hurt there was hert immunity, and it was I 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:09.320 guess the way to describe it as herd immunity. The 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:13.160 hard way. Um, people being exposed to the virus or 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:17.400 the bacteria developing that immune response and enough, you know, 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:19.480 they reached that tipping point where enough people have it 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:22.280 to where everyone's immune. But they lost a lot of 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:24.400 people along the way. Yeah, that's part of the problem 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:26.880 is is if you look at it on an individual level, 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:30.160 if you are exposed to a virus or a bacterium 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:33.080 and it runs rampant and infects you when you come 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:37.760 down with an illness from it, you there's basically two outcomes. 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:40.920 You can put it up, put up an immune response 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:44.480 and win, or you can lose and die. But if 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:48.440 you survive and win, you've become immunized. And that's just 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:52.800 the natural course of viruses or bacteria when they encounter humans. 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:56.360 It's at least contagious ones infectious ones, right, um. And 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:59.560 and we didn't have any recourse other than that. So 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:01.640 it's actually kind of good that we do have this 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:06.400 natural immune response to I mean, we just wouldn't be 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:08.480 around anymore if we didn't have. Its. Part and parcel 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:11.640 with human survival or any biological survival is to be 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:14.960 able to mount in immune response, build antibodies so that 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:17.000 if you do encounter this thing again. You don't have 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:19.520 to go through the illness all over again for the 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:24.320 most part. But like, we didn't have any other tools 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:28.480 besides that until the nineteen forties when we were able 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:32.080 to mass manufacture vaccines, and now all of a sudden, 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:36.720 we could say, create herd immunity without anybody ever having 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:41.520 to get sick or almost anybody, um, just through vaccination 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:47.160 vaccination programs. Yeah, and here's the deal to uh. In 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:50.880 you know, pre vaccination, they could build up an immunity, 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:52.480 lose a lot of people on the way, and it 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.440 wasn't like, all right, now we're fully set forever. Uh. 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:59.280 Sometimes there would be like another swell of exposure, whether 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:01.600 or not it's like a bunch of people moving into 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:04.280 the country or a bunch of people being born, but 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:08.720 basically non immune people kind of flooding the system. And 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:10.920 then that percentage point that we're going to talk about 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:13.640 dips below that number, and then you kind of you 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:16.079 don't have to restart the whole process, but it kind 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:18.960 of that hamster wheel gets going again until that herd 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:22.000 immunity is then reached again. Yeah. That's I think that's 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:25.760 um what's called an endemic disease where it's still they're 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:28.440 just hanging in the background. But for the most part, 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:31.040 people are immune to it. And then when you have 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:33.600 like an influx of births or an influx of immigrants, 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:36.280 that can flare up again. But then those people get 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:40.160 um kind of taken into the immunized herd, become part 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:42.440 of the immunized herd as well. And and the deal 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:44.760 is is that natural herd immunity is all we had 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:48.319 until we developed kind of the ability to make massive 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:51.880 quantities of vaccines, right I think of the starting in 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:54.840 the nineteen forties. Yeah, I mean there were a few 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:58.120 researchers along the way who really brought this along. There 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:00.600 was a couple of people, name a couple of dudes 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:05.360 named W. W. C. Topley and G. S. Wilson who 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:09.880 actually coined the term um herd immunity. But in ninety three. 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:15.360 That was an UH epidemiologist named A. W. Hydrick who 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:19.480 studied measles between ninety one and he's the one that 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:22.880 actually kind of quantified this and said, I've done the math. 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:26.679 If sixty percent of kids fifteen or younger were immune 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:29.040 to measles, then we're not going to have a big outbreak, 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:31.440 and he wrote a very famous paper about it, and 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:35.280 that's where the term really took off. Yeah, and so, um, 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:42.840 herd immunity is basically an epidemiological concept. It gets um sometimes, 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:46.240 I think in the in the popular press especially, it 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:48.240 gets kind of leaned on as if it's like a 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:52.600 natural universal law or something like that. It's basically an observation, 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:56.080 but one that has seems to be consistently held up 0:10:56.440 --> 0:11:00.360 by the success of vaccination programs that we've cre aided 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:04.720 to generate artificial herd immunity. And that's the point. That's 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:10.199 the point of vaccine programs is to say, okay, for 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:13.200 for basically all of human history, all we had was 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:16.000 that natural herd immunity, whether we liked it or not. 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:18.920 But now that we have vaccines, we can create vaccine 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:23.199 programs where if we vaccinate enough people, we can force 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:28.280 this herd immunity without almost anybody getting sick. Like you 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:31.000 might have a slight reaction to the vaccine for a 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:34.520 small number of people, usually somewhere around like say three 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:37.640 to ten percent, the vaccine is not going to protect you. 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:40.920 But if enough people out there get this vaccine, they're 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:44.640 going to be vaccinated. Immunized against the disease without ever 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:48.120 having gotten it. And if enough people are vaccinated, we 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:51.320 will have this herd immunity without having to undergo some 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:56.000 disastrous epidemic that kills off some ungodly number of people 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:59.720 and makes an even larger number of people sick. That's 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:03.960 the basis of vaccines in the vaccination program. And I 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:07.840 mean countless tens of millions of lives have been saved 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:10.599 just from the fact that they have existed since the 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:14.320 nineteen forties. Yeah, I mean that's when they came into 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:18.960 mass production in se is, when we first started as humans. 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:21.880 To kind of understand this concept, there was a man 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:25.480 named Edward Jenner who inoculated a little kid, a little boy, 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:28.800 against smallpox. And this is kind of gross sounding, but 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:32.800 he infected him with the plus from a blister of 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:36.520 cow cow pox, which is less deadly, and he was like, Hey, 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:40.360 I think I'm onto something here, and in uh, two 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:43.319 hundred and or I guess a hundred and forty something years, 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:46.680 we're really going to be on the ball with this stuff, right. 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:50.280 And there were others like vaccines along the way, but um, 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:53.320 and I think they were all just kind of small batch. 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:58.080 You know, like artisan vaccines that were created, um, but 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:01.360 the uh, the it was like the forties where this 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:04.920 on this mass industrial scale that that they were produced. 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:07.880 And only under those circumstances can you actually get to 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:11.800 herd immunity for like a large population like a state 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:17.000 or a nation or a world. Basically, Yeah, and you know, 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:18.960 I think we've said this will kind of keep beating 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:21.680 this drum and repeating this, but the whole concept is 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:26.479 to protect people who haven't even been vaccinated. Just sometimes 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:29.440 you're too young to get vaccinated, Sometimes you have a 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:32.600 condition as a child where you literally can't be vaccinated, 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:36.920 or maybe you're elderly and you had been vaccinated. But 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:40.319 you know, they always talk about, especially with COVID nineteen 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:43.280 and and the flu, the elderly population is at risk 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:48.400 because they're way more likely to develop complications like uh, 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:51.000 pneumonia as a big one for what's going around now, 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:54.640 but as far as even something like chicken pox, encephalitis 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:58.400 or hepatitis. And we don't really know the deal with 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:02.560 children and adults their immune system and exactly how they 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:05.679 work and what the differences are, but it looks like 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:10.760 kids are either more robust and against something like chicken pox, 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:12.400 like when you have it as a kid is usually 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:14.200 not such a big deal. When you have it as 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:16.360 an adult, it is a big deal because it may 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:19.640 be your adult system just going into overdrive saying you 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:22.200 should have had this when you were six, Right, what 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:25.040 is wrong with you? Didn't you have any friends? Did 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:27.520 you have chicken pox? Probably didn't you? I did? I 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:30.840 did here. Yeah, my sister always had. She had a 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:33.560 pox scar like on her temple that I always admired, 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:35.600 so I made sure to like pick one on my temple. 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:40.000 I don't think Emily got it for some reason. I'm 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:42.360 that is in my brain. Oh my is she? Does 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:45.760 she have the vaccine against it? I think so? Okay, 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:48.040 because since the mid nineties they came out with a 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:51.000 vaccine against ari selah, which is the virus that causes 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:53.720 chicken pox, And now it's like you don't have to 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:56.280 get it as a kid any anymore. I'm pretty sure 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:58.840 somebody I know didn't get it and did get the vaccine, 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:05.240 and I'm pretty sure it's right, so pretty well so 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:08.520 um so with chicken pox, that's a good example of 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:10.520 how like you know, if you haven't when you're a kid, 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:12.640 it's I mean, it's still life threatening. You can get 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:16.080 all those same things like encephalitis or pneumonia, but you're 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:18.560 just way likelier to get it as an adult. Same 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:21.880 thing with the flu, Like the flu can be very 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:25.920 deadly depending on how old you are. UM, I think 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:30.560 something like it says ninety percent of flu related deaths 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:34.280 and fifty to seventy percent of hospitalizations for the flu 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:38.040 are for people over age sixty five. I mean, so 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:41.000 for the same exact strain of a bug that, like 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:43.760 you know, has a kid at home watching prices right 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:48.960 for one day, maybe two, UM, it lands an older 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:51.360 person over age sixty five in the hospital on the 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:54.040 brink of death. You know, it's just different. And so 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:58.000 because that there is that difference, it makes sense to 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:02.200 immunize the young, inoculate the young, to protect the elderly. 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:04.960 And let's not forget, even if you couldn't care less 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:08.120 about the elderly, you hate the elderly because some old 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:10.840 man yelled at you once when you threw a football 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:13.360 in his yard, and you've hated all old people ever since. 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:17.520 Then do you hate babies because there are there are 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:20.520 babies who are too young to be inoculated? And then 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:23.360 there's also those people, like you said, who don't have 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:27.360 um healthy enough immune systems to get a vaccine, and 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:31.360 so they rely on the everybody else the herd to 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:35.200 be vaccinated to provide this immunity for them. So there 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:38.640 are really good reasons to be vaccinated in addition to 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:44.680 you yourself being immunized against these things. Yeah, and you know, 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:48.920 these things work better in a homogeneous population. And every 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:50.920 time I see that word, I want to say homogeneous 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:53.960 for some reason, that's the British way of saying. Do 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:56.160 they say that way? They probably do, probably just to 0:16:56.200 --> 0:17:03.080 be contrarian or contrary Indian. Uh, they work better and 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:05.880 homogeneous populations, which there are not a lot of those 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:09.760 uh still these days, um, thanks to you know, people 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:13.200 integrating with one another. So when they do these calculations 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:15.119 that we're about to talk about, they take all of 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:20.520 that into account, races, ethnicities, mixed races, stuff like that. 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:23.320 And so you know, we've been talking about the modeling 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:27.040 and the math involved. It can get complicated, but it's 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:31.000 really kind of simple that it's base form, don't you think, yes, 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:34.520 especially if you're a mathematical genius in a statistical whiz, 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:38.120 which I am not okay, But in the broad strokes, yeah, 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:39.920 you you can make a pretty good case that it's 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:43.080 understandable for sure that it's it's all based on the 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:49.600 reproduction number in relation to the size of the population. Basically, yeah, 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:52.920 and that reproduction number they in the in the biz, 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:56.760 it's pronounced are not. It's are with a. I guess 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:59.919 that's a zero. Huh, yeah, I'd to say our zero 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:04.399 any day. Are not though, for an infection, is a 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:08.400 number of people expected to contract that illness after coming 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:12.359 into contact with an infected person under the right conditions 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:16.920 that they can contract it. So a less confusing way 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:19.080 of saying that is the are not number is the 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:22.199 expected number of people that a contagious person is going 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:26.080 to infect. Right, So if you understand this about a disease, 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:30.120 if you know um, for example, with the MOMPS that's 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:33.640 extremely contagious, which means that it has a high are 0:18:33.760 --> 0:18:37.439 not because the average person walking around infected with the 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:39.920 MOMPS and contagious with the MOMPS is going to get 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:44.040 something between ten and twelve other people infected with the 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:46.760 MOMPS and then they themselves will be contagious. So that 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:49.320 means that the MOMPS has a relatively high are not 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:53.200 or reproduction number. So if you understand that about the moms, 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:57.439 you can calculate how many people in a population have 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:01.879 to be immunized against the momps to to prevent it 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:05.400 from transmitting within that population. And, like we said, there's 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:08.320 a lot more math to it than that, but ultimately, 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:14.080 for the months in today's modern heterogeneous populations, is that 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:17.600 the right way of saying. I don't know. Nobody says heterogeneous, 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:21.199 do they. That sounds way too close to erotic. It 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:25.119 sounds like something I would say, so um uh, in 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:28.919 today's modern society, We'll just put it like that, you 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:34.840 need to have about of any given population immunized against 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:39.679 momps to reach what's called the herd immunity threshold. That 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:42.320 herd immunity threshold is basically what I just said. It's 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:45.160 the percentage of the population that has to be immunized 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:49.800 for her immunity to kick in to cover everybody else. Yeah, 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:52.320 and I know that everyone's going, what about COVID, What 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:55.760 about COVID? What about COVID? Oh? Do you want to 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:58.080 not even say yet? You want to wait? Okay, I 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:01.280 mean that's fine, that's fine. We'll how about this let's 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:03.919 take a break. Oh my god, this is just and 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:07.920 then right after the break, we'll we'll dive into this 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:09.679 stuff later, but right after the break, we'll give you 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:11.959 sort of what they're thinking as of today when we 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:41.280 record right after this shosh and shock. All right, So 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:45.920 that was an unfair cliffhanger, uh, And keep in mind, 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:47.879 like we kind of learned and we knew this was 0:20:47.880 --> 0:20:50.000 going to happen with our COVID nineteen podcast, it was 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:52.639 out of date like days later, and this will be 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:54.520 out of date because there's just so much we don't 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:56.399 know yet and we're learning so much every day and 0:20:56.440 --> 0:21:02.000 every week. But I've seen the range from six is 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:05.119 what they think the immunity threshold needs to be for 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:10.640 UH to have a pretty successful herd immunity, Right, that's 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:12.880 the current thinking that I saw as well, that they 0:21:12.920 --> 0:21:15.920 think the reproduction number is somewhere between two and three. 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:18.199 I think that's a two point eight is like the 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:23.840 most widely touted for COVID nineteen, thankfully. I mean, can 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:27.800 you imagine if it was like a month's level, right, Yeah, No, 0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:30.080 that's especially with the fact that there's such a thing 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:33.000 as asymptomatic carriers who can walk around in fating people. 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:36.200 If that was that much more contagious, it would be, Yeah, 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:38.439 it would be pretty rotten. Like it as bad as 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:43.040 it is, it could conceivably be worse epidemiologically speaking. Yeah, 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:45.480 And here's where we should also point out that, just 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:47.880 like we're talking about her immunity, but if we reach 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:51.960 her immunity, that doesn't mean like everything is solved. Um, 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:54.119 if we come up with a vaccine, which we will, 0:21:54.720 --> 0:22:00.640 vaccines aren't effective against every single human, so things can 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:04.600 still happen. Um, And then sometimes you get an immunization 0:22:05.080 --> 0:22:08.280 that's effective for a short time, for a few years. Maybe. Yeah, 0:22:08.440 --> 0:22:12.879 there's an outbreak of diphtheria in Russia. I mean, like 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:15.760 tens of thousands of people fell ill with diphtheria, and 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:18.600 they were almost all adults. And they went back and 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:21.480 figured out the reason why this happened was because, um, 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:24.840 those adults hadn't been given a booster shot for their 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:30.679 diphtheria um inoculation and so so they're they're immune response. 0:22:30.720 --> 0:22:33.240 They're antibodies that they built up when they were children 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:38.520 having been given this diphtheria vaccine had waned, and they 0:22:38.600 --> 0:22:41.480 it waned enough that diphtheria was able to kind of 0:22:41.520 --> 0:22:44.360 take over and and cause this outbreak. And so when 0:22:44.359 --> 0:22:46.480 you look at it like that, that's almost a really 0:22:46.480 --> 0:22:52.600 good analogy to herd immunity. It's like over time, the 0:22:52.600 --> 0:22:56.480 the the that threshold can be can be can decline 0:22:56.600 --> 0:22:59.199 so that the virus or the bacteria can get in 0:22:59.320 --> 0:23:01.600 the same thing. The individual level, if you don't get 0:23:01.640 --> 0:23:04.880 a booster shot if you need it. For some vaccines, 0:23:04.920 --> 0:23:07.480 you don't need it. I think measles, moms, and rubella 0:23:07.600 --> 0:23:11.720 are all considered UM to confer lifetime immunity if it 0:23:11.760 --> 0:23:14.120 does work on you, and I think those are nine 0:23:14.359 --> 0:23:17.199 seven percent effective. So for nine seven out of a 0:23:17.240 --> 0:23:20.679 hundred people, when you get an mm ARE vaccine as 0:23:20.720 --> 0:23:22.800 a kid, you don't need any kind of booster and 0:23:22.840 --> 0:23:25.720 you're gonna be immune to it for life, right, which 0:23:25.760 --> 0:23:29.960 is great. It is UM. That's the point of accedence. Yeah, 0:23:30.000 --> 0:23:31.520 and this is where we need to dip our toe 0:23:31.560 --> 0:23:36.240