The person you responded to is asking a question. I don't get why you need to be so weirdly sarcastic. (I have theories, but they're quite denigrating towards you, so I'll refrain from airing them)
Anyway, I look forward to your explanation, and perhaps we can find a way to help you interact more successfully with human beings?
You probably shouldn't rely on some random HN poster for your definition of what herd immunity means. It's a well defined term in the epidemiological field, and definitions are readily available via sites such as Wikipedia and search engines.
> COVID at best is a once-a-decade unusually strong flu variant which we have severely overreacted to - probably spurred on by Chinese propaganda and their fake reporting.
dang, why are you allowing this kind of shit on here? Please step up and sort this out.
> Saying China did a good job is like saying the USA should suspend the Constitution and do the same thing
This is a ridiculous statement.
China has done a good job on dealing with Covid and so have South Korea and Taiwan. Restrictions are all mostly lifted within these countries and life is mostly back to normal.
They key to their responses is not that they are awful dictatorships. They were prepared, they have taken strong and necessary measures and their population voluntarily made efforts for the benefit of all even if that meant some personal sacrifices.
The relative failures of many Western countries is due to, I think, lack of preparation, lack of leadership, and misguided refusal by many to make the necessary and quite limited personal sacrifices on the false pretext that they are a threat to personal liberties.
China simply stopped reporting on corona once Xi realized the Chinese economy was tanking, which would threaten the stability of the CCP. Now he just has a famine to manage, but hey, if 50% population losses are fine (Mao quote), no biggie.
However, their door-welding quarantine would work if you did it on a large enough scale for 2 weeks. But then do you weld-in the welders? lol. (Apparently the CCP delivered daily takeout to the weldees. We're not setup for that in the US.)
I also rejoined ACM last year (after a 10 year hiatus), mainly for access to the O'Reilly stuff (what used to be safarionline). Tremendous value, and the monthly ACM mag is actually quite interesting.
As well as acquiring immunity without being infectious.
However, the efficacy of this vaccine (and all the other candidates) still needs to be clarified - ie is it like a measles vaccination (~90% efficacy) or the flu vaccines (~ 25% - 50% I believe).
For the FDA to even consider an emergency use authorization, they have put the following requirements:
- Efficacy of at least 60%
- Lower bound of efficacy (confidence interval) >= 30%
- Minimum safety data for at least one or two months post vaccination (I don't remember if it's one or two)
- At least five severe cases in the control arm
- Requirements for the trials to go on even if efficacy is found for an additional year after the trial end (for most of the trials, this means two years in total)
