From New York Times, I'm likeable borrow. This is a daily from the beginning of the pandemic. There's been a lot of talk of heard immunity. It hurt him. He heard a unity. Public health officials said that achieving heard immune, immunity is what's gonna? Save the country from an endemic and damage would mark the end of the crisis. You get an old well. The majority of the people vaccinated. We can reasonably quickly get to the hurting unity? That would be a blanket of protection for the country today, as infections. and the country begins to fully real than my colleague of poor wonderfully onwards, Exports now believe that achieving

heard. Immunity may not ever happened. It's Friday, Mason. A proper described this reporting that you have been doing over the past few weeks. I have been thinking about where we are with getting to the end of the pen, D'Emic by we've been talking about getting to herd immunity as this percentage of population that we have to get to the milestone beyond which the virus is going to have a lot of trouble spreading. So it was always described to us as the way out of the pen

as this place, where we can finally show the virus, the exit door in can get on with our lives, and I wanted to talk to some scientists to see how close and they thought we are too. This hard immunity threshold for the virus basically has run out people do in fact, which is extremely pertinent. Question are we nearing the point at which somebody sneezes near you and how, Corbett, nineteen that sneeze it's gonna bounce off immune people, right people who were immune because they been vaccinated or they have had an infection, and basically the virus can't fight. Almost yes, exactly

Do you mean higher grew the so called up a bunch of scientists across a range of disciplines, and I ask that question. So let me close by the thing: do you think that, accordingly, how closer we did that weight, and what do they tell you? It was a very dispiriting conversation shore. We probably won't get to her community. I think than William unlikely in the near future topic that reaching the hurt him in two ways

ass likely to get out of here and I'm sick person after person that I called told me that not only are we not that close, but that we may never get there. I think that we are unlikely to ever get to the point where we can eliminate Toby do altogether room in any. That must have felt like whiplash. It was a shock because not only did they say this to me, but it seemed like they had all been thinking about this for months. They had all known that for months and it felt like why haven't you told us that then we may never actually get to this hard immunity? threshold let's talk about how we arrived at this moment. a sobering moment It seems that hurt immunity might not ever happen because

Since- and I think it's our collective sense is that, We were on our way towards her immunity, and that was ball. So how do we get What words now looking not at all achievable you're, not alone. I think everybody thought it was ball and we started talking about this pretty early on in the pandemic, yeah, I remember writing about antibody tests when they were first. Coming out on the market in April and may last year already, the conversation was very much about. We are trying to measure people's immunity This is how we are going to know how many people are protected and how close we are too hard immunity. The conversation started right then, and it stayed with us You know. The estimate around then was always sixty to seventy percent and it stayed at that level until the summer when people actually revised downwards. Even some very cautious scientists whom I consider to be very careful and circumspect

in their thinking, even they started to say. Well, maybe we can actually achieve heard immunity by forty five percent to fifty percent. saying what you mean when you mention those percentages, this The percentage of Americans who needed to achieve immunity for the pandemic. Two more or less start to come to an end, that's right and that percentage included both people who are vaccinated and people who had just been sick and had recovered and now as some kind of immunity from the virus. So it seems really achievable because first of all we had infections and very big numbers. So it seems, like you know, in cities like New York, so many people had gotten sick and recovered that you know when pockets of the At least we might already be at heart Immunity- and this is just you know such an attractive idea right. You can see why it was so appealing. Everybody wanted to think we are so close to them.

If this thing and in New York after we had been through just a horrific horrific spring, we just wanted to feel like it's done. We withdrew the worst so that was the summer and then the vaccine started to become A reality restart to see that Pfizer Medina had great results. They were showing really impressive protection. So if anything at that point, hard immunity seemed war within reach than at any other time. It seemed like hey. We ve got these amazing vaccines. We're gonna get there for short right. So when did that start to change so if you remember the vaccines were authorized in December. Just round that time, we started to hear about war, contagious versions of the virus, the variants, the variants exactly. We started to hear

about a new version of the virus that were circulating in the United Kingdom. That seemed much more contagious than the version that he had been seeing so far and that really changed the conversation, at least among scientists, and they started to say that now we're going to need higher percentage for hard immunity. They explain. Why would I be? Why would the british variant change the discussion on her immunity, so hard communities calculated formula based on the contagious myself a virus. Very basically, when you increase the contagious knows of a virus, then hard immunity goes up. that's just the way. The formula is so now that you're looking at a more contagious version of this virus, you need not sixty or seventy percent, but now you need at least eighty percent possibly as high as ninety, maybe even ninety five percent, which is a a significant increase from sixty or

seventy per cent immunity in the United States right. So to get to that point, we would have to convince just about every American to get back separated. Right. So that was the case back in December, but now lucky for us at this very moment the. U S has three vaccine that have been granted emergency authorization and are being distributed around the country which would seem to be allowing us to potentially reach that goal seem to be at. The problem is that we have a very significant proportion of the population that just doesn't seem to want the vaccine. We ve seen just in the last few weeks that the rate at which were vaccinating is falling. There are all these reports of vaccination sites through essentially sitting empty waiting for people to come through their doors were seeing. States and cities can really desperate and offer all kinds of incentives just to get people to come and get backs needed

so. We should have an easy time getting to this percent, but it doesn't look like we well. How short are we falling of the level a vaccination that would be required to reach hurting unity at this point. Well, let's just look at the level of Faxa nations. To begin with, a court into the sea DC about thirty percent of population is fully protected, and by that I mean that either had both doses of either the Pfizer the Medina vaccine, or they ve- had the windows from the Johnson and Johnson. So thirty percent are fully protected, that's very far from where we need to be so. Even if you consider that lets say another thirty percent of the population has been exposed to the virus at some point and has had some ports Action through natural infection, we're still only at about sixty percent, were nowhere near that. Ninety that we need so just a summers.

What variants of the virus make heard immunity harder to achieve in the? U s: Then it was when we started having this conversation last year. And we realise that the only way to achieve it is true Secondly, high levels of vaccination, which we are not doing so. That's how you get to these depressed. conversations are having with scientists who are suddenly telling you that it looks. Get her immunity. We all talked about, and we all thought we could achieve is now actually not achievable by and we leave. I had spent some time thinking about both those things. I should have known that what I was going back here, is that had heard immunity is not achievable. If any of us could do the math that this island, his do, we should have guessed, and I should certainly have guessed and if we are finding his truth, it I'd say, it's where there's a lot of vaccine and a lot of places to get vaccines. Is it true as well for the rest of the world?

They turn immunity is very unlikely to happen in any country, not necessarily it's unlikely to happen in the near future. Yes, but as MAX you start to become available in other places, I think I may do much better with convincing their population to have access to this is. Where are you know? American exceptionalism is really coming into play. Americans just don't like to be told what to do, but I think back scenes will be a much easier so in This is where people are used to taking vaccines and people will actually line up and want to be vaccinated solution. being a uniquely a mayor problem with unique american implications. It cut in its very depressing. We are the country with the most vaccines at our disposal, and yet we seem to have the highest rates of vaccine hesitancy. There's some in other countries as well, but not like that

I did states are american. Exceptionalism is really gonna end up being a problem. If we don't make inroads into this hesitancy, we could end up being only country in a few years time that still hasn't made it anywhere close to hurt immunity and therefore covered in our lives for a long time for the foreseeable future will bury back. Two thousand and twenty one is the 25th anniversary of the Telecommunications ACT of nineteen. Ninety six, the last comprehensive update to internet regulation. The internet has experienced more than a few updates, since one thousand nine hundred and ninety six, but internet regulations have not that's why Facebook supports updated

relations on key issues like preventing election interference, protecting people's privacy, reforming section, two thirty and more see facebooks progress, on key issues and, what's next at about thought, F, B, dot, com, slash regulations, this reform, It looked like to live in a country in which there is not heard immunity and Firstly, a country like that I'd states that has started to reopen and yet is not really on its way to her community when it probably means is that we are going to hear about outbreaks of the virus in fr in parts of the country throughout the year will hear about outbreaks in any place that doesn't have a very high level of vaccine acceptance. Hopefully they will be anywhere near what we saw in the months of work.

turn. The numbers were just Billy horrifically high, or we will probably still here about lots of very sick people and some people dying for many years to come when he used that's right. The best estimate so far are seems to be that we might sort of bumble along this path for the next generation or to work, but at some point all the adults will have either been vaccinated or they will have had the virus ones, but that might take twenty to forty there's two during the intervening twenty to forty years, when we wait for that point, I wonder if you could cried the kinds of outbreaks that war and to be experiencing what that's gonna feel like. Is there an analogy that comes to mind but think about the orthodox jewish population in New York and just north of the city? They ve had some really bad measles outbreaks, because they're not vaccinated from measles

same with LOS Angeles, where for many reasons, the vaccine. I said This is very low and those places have seen measles outbreaks that really have flared very quickly out of control. Because there is very little hurt immunity in those particular packets, but those do spill out into the broader community, sometimes and in fact, say babies that have not yet been vaccinated, or some older adults who lost immunity over time to the measles fires. That does happen. Sometimes so we're talking about seeing these pockets of wires, popping up all through the country and sometimes spilling over even into the neighboring communities where people did get vaccinated for the most part and how

You will those outbreaks b for the average person who is vaccinated or for the vast majority of people who are vaccinated, probably won't be an even if they do get infected. They may not get very sick, but there are cases that we ve seen already, where even people who have been vaccinated can get infected. There was two case in Kentucky at a nursing home where there was an unboxing, aided staff member who infected twenty six residents of the nice, your home and eighteen of them, of that twenty six had been vaccinated, with both doses of the vaccine. Two weeks passed the second those which is what were supposed to have, and still they were infected. Some of them had symptoms and two of them died. So there's a likely I hope that you will not get a sick if you ve been vaccinated before, but it's not a full guarantee to anywhere. We have not achieved parliamentary.

What we're living in now and it looks like we will be living in, for, as you say, to a generation. Things like this will happen where an anachronistic person can a person whose keeping us from achieving hurt immunity will, in fact vaccinated people and some small percentage of them. really sick and are even smaller percentage of them will die. That's right- and I think this is very important to emphasise, also because I've seen a lot of this sentiment of you know, I don't want to get back sedated, that's on them. Why should I care, but there are a lot of people like the elderly,

for example, who may not put up a very strong response, even when they get vaccinated. There are so many women are compromise people you know either because they had cancer or who take some kind of medication that don't really produce antibodies when they get the vaccine, and so we do have to think about. All of those people is being susceptible when there is an outbreak and there's something else. We need to think about which is that, We person that the virus and facts is another opportunity for it to mutate. So when you have a virus circulating in big numbers of people again, we giving the virus so many chances to mutate into something that is more contagious or that are vaccines are not quite as effective against. So we have to be very careful to also contain the virus and its ability you take so once we have a country acknowledge that we're not, after an immunity,

because of the variants and because of facts in hesitancy. It brings us to this. Trusting juncture, because we know we can't really effect. the course of variants, but we can, in theory of the number of Americans who get vaccinate? That's where country and a government. We would seem to have the most leverage the most power to effect the course of a so. How do the people you talked of the scientists and the public health experts? Think about that and talk about that. First of all, I think there is still a lot of progress left to be made in cutting down this level of hesitancy, but if we still have a percentage of the population that just does not want a vaccine, we can still get a lot of benefit by focusing on The people who are highest at risk, if you like the ultimate question here, is just how consequential is it that we want?

achieve hurting me or that if we achieve it, it will be for a very long time and We will live in a world of periodic outbreaks, a world in which covered is still in our mostly vaccinated myths? So how do you think about? that, on a scale of scary to manageable listen, I understand that this is a huge mental shift for people to have to give up on this idea

we were gonna get to hurt immunity. I went through the same thing when I started calling these experts near me, I believe, was the great towards the end of my reporting. After I talk to all the other experts, I called Tony factory via report is scarcely every single day. What are you going to return of unity, and I asked him- you know how worried should be about this and I say the same thing then the people you been talking to us. They wait a minute. We give. This issue were heard of unity and just get as many people vaccinated as you possibly can as quickly as you possibly can, and what does this mean for the future of this country? You can get. You know a certain percentage of the population vaccinated and in fact you don't necessarily reached the classic devolution of herded unity, but you still have a considerable

Mount Olympus why their relations? What we really should care about is protecting those high risk people backs in aiding the people were most likely to get sick or to die soon, as you do that pretty soon Rather than later, you gonna thirteen the infections coming now? We can still bring down what we really worry about because the number of aspirations and in the health care system just buckling under the weight of that, we can still prevent that. So pretty immunity is not an off on switching.

continue on right and we are somewhere along that path and the more we keep walking along there. The better our world will look the less scary. It will look, so it doesn't have to be a dire thing, we're just changing what we consider to be our goal. Thank you could do more for more. Thank you very much always a pleasure on Monday show, will explore the causes, an impact. a vaccine hesitancy in a city we'll town in Rural Tennessee, we'll drive back. This package is supported by capital, one Otto navigator,

where you can find a car, get pre qualified instantly and see a real monthly payment without impacting your credit score capital one. What's in your wallet, terms and conditions apply, find out more cap. one dot com, slash auto navigator, Here's what else you need today right now. I have what we think is the strongest election integrity measures in the country and actually get to sign it right here. It's gonna take effect. On Thursday, the governor of Florida Roupell can Rhonda Santa's sign. Into law, new restrictions on voting, many making it harder to vote by mail, and me, citing this bill here, says Florida, your vote counts. Your vote is gonna, be cast with integrity and transparency, and this the great place ruling class, shake other Roupell descent, who said that the law was necessary to improve confidence

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