Herd Immunity

[Pan0ptical]

Hi everyone!

 

The term herd immunity is widely used but carries a variety of meanings. Some authors use it to describe the proportion immune among individuals in a population. Others use it with reference to a particular threshold proportion of immune individuals that should lead to a decline in incidence of infection. Still others use it to refer to a pattern of immunity that should protect a population from invasion of a new infection. A common implication of the term is that the risk of infection among susceptible individuals in a population is reduced by the presence and proximity of immune individuals (this is sometimes referred to as indirect protection or a herd effect). We provide brief historical, epidemiological, theoretical, and pragmatic public health perspectives on this concept.

 

link removed

[hypervalent_iodine]

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Moderator Note

Hi,

Does this thread have a point for discussion? I have removed your link since all you've really done here is attempt to advertise it, which happens to be against the forum rules. If that's all you've come here to do, I will have to close this.

[Pan0ptical]

Too much moderation power, you thought this member is new so his subject couldn't have enough credibility.

 

Yes the topic has a freaking philosophical scientific meaning if you read the damn link.

 

Moderators like cops, some among both suffer from power use disorder

Edited January 29, 2015 by Pan0ptical

[iNow]

Back to the core question... what exactly do you wish to discuss? Summarize the key points here instead of directing traffic elsewhere and all will be well once more...

[Endy0816]

Looking at it, it is mostly concerned with the freeloader problem and at-risk populations associating amongst themselves(increasing their risk).

 

 

We do see posts of similar nature and treat them all the same way. It comes off across as another kind of spam with only an abstract and a link. Have to provide some meat for discussion.

[hypervalent_iodine]

Too much moderation power, you thought this member is new so his subject couldn't have enough credibility.

Yes the topic has a freaking philosophical scientific meaning if you read the damn link.

Moderators like cops, some among both suffer from power use disorder

!

Moderator Note

Or maybe, I saw this thread and thought, 'there's nothing here for discussion, this thread looks like little more than an advertisement.' Last chance. What do you want to discuss?

[TheDivineFool]

All of the 'different' definitions seem to be effects of herd immunity. Where's the problem?

 

Herd immunity, as I understand it, is the proportion of immune individuals in a population.

 

This has beneficial consequences mentioned in the OP.

[Raz71]

I have read about 2 different types of herd immunity. One is natural and the other induced by medicine. There are not the same as the medicine induced wont ever be even close to mimic the natural one. So bad that I could not even see the link to understand what the OP point was about.

[3blake7]

I think of sociology like this, every population exists on a bell curve, from emotional reasoners, dominated by social acceptance/rejection and cultural belief systems, to logical reasoners, dominated by logical consistency and universal concepts. There is also the shades of grey, the conditional reasoners, which may be logical in some contexts and emotional in others. They will have contradictory philosophies depending on the context.

 

So what you are saying, I think, is that the presence of logical reasoners, to counter-balance emotional reasoners, can prevent a herd effect, such as Hitler rabble rousing the general population with a lowest common denominator bigotry, which may or may not have existed before, but the lack of first-hand experience with the target population allowed the general population to be easily biased. I would also like to say that I think this happening again is less likely just because we are less isolated with the existence of the internet and cross-pollination between cultures. During the rise of the Nazi Party and Hitler, there was a counter-balance movement, the Antifaschistische Aktion. So, while I don't disagree with you, I think there is another element at play here that has a stronger effect on the general population, and that's culture, the emergent psychology having more first-hand experience with diversity. Logical reasoners are most effective by exposing their relative culture to diversity.

Edited May 23, 2015 by 3blake7