I listened to an exhaustive +6 hour pro-vaccination podcast to try to understand the pro-vax case. "Herd Immunity" is the idea used to justify the state's non-consensual forcing of people (particularly children) to take vaccines.
The herd immunity argument doesn't pass the standard of critical thinking. The idea is that everybody should be vaccinated because that will give the virus fewer potential hosts mitigating the spread. The regulating agencies think that the statistically small (supposedly) number of vaccine injuries and deaths are worth it because overall they make "the herd" (us!) less susceptible to disease. Herd immunity (supposedly) lowers the statistical chance of the disease spreading. The CDC wants "herd immunity" because those with compromised immune systems - the very young, the very old, idiots who drink soda and eat junk food - could be killed by something like measles so we should vaccinate 95% of the population.
First of all, that's the kind of justification that a Soviet general would use during the battle of Stalingrad; let's send a bunch of conscripts charging into machine gun fire, half the guys will die, the NKVD will shoot those who retreat, and enough will survive to advance and conquer new ground. As a libertarian, individualist type I'm opposed to this sort of statist population management. I don't consent consent to (seriously!) risking the health of myself and my family by taking vaccines because it might help someone else. I don't accept a cost being imposed upon me to benefit someone else I don't know.
However, herd immunity doesn't make sense because it only takes one infected guy to spread the disease. If there's just one infected guy coughing on a crowded subway train, he can spread the disease to everybody else on the train.
Leftists are so fond of reminding us about how old-world European diseases brought by Europeans killed off millions of the natives in North and Central America. How many European colonizers do you think were sick with smallpox as they hopped off the boat to venture out into the new world? Probably almost none of them. It was probably just a few sick colonizers who initially spread smallpox to a few native Americans who spread the disease to the rest of the population.
Furthermore, even vaccinated people still spread the disease unwittingly because they don't experience the symptoms. Many of the Europeans colonizers, would have had a natural immunity to smallpox because they had the disease at some point in their life before they got on the boat. But they were still disease vectors spreading the disease to those susceptible to it. All of the compliant members of the "herd" who got vaccinated because CNN told them not be "conspiracy theorists" are still spreading disease to those who might be susceptible to it. It only takes one person to spread a disease, famously one very promiscuous gay flight attendant initially spread AIDS to the gay community.
Mass 3rd world immigration further delegitimizes herd immunity. if you're on a crowded train in California you can be nearly certain that there's a guy on that train who was a recently in a 3rd world slum, bringing with him all the nasty viruses and pathogens from that undeveloped country. Herd immunity might make sense if our countries were closed system but we have millions of people coming to our countries.
But we live in such densely packed societies that those with compromised immune systems are inevitably going to come in contact with unvaccinated people. The most vulnerable are STILL at risk even if we reach 95% vaccination. Especially in this globalized world where you're sitting next to a coughing guy on the train who was in a slum in Honduras last month.
Also, vaccinated people still spread the disease without knowing it. Statistically speaking, if 95% are vaccinated they have the virus in their system because they injected it. So now you have 95% of the population who can spread the disease to those few who it might actually kill instead of a much smaller group of people who got the disease naturally.
This is why I'm a big fan of natural immunity. When you get a disease you are sick for a few days or whatever, take some vitamins, get some sleep and then you're bulletproof to that strain of the disease forever.
Edited by jroseland, 25 October 2019 - 10:59 AM.
