Iceland’s Top Epidemiologist: COVID Vaccination Has Not Led to Herd Immunity
Switching gears to treatments instead of desperately clinging to vaccines may be the winning approach.
News continues to stream worldwide that the COVID-19 vaccinations are not as effective as either hoped or advertised.
In my home state of California, 19% of all new cases are among those who have received vaccinations. Officials are using this data to thrust the mask-up campaign upon everyone whose last name isn’t Obama.
About 19% of recent documented COVID-19 cases in California are breakthroughs, and state data shows that those who have been fully vaccinated account for an increasing portion of positive tests.
…Breakthrough case rates are a sensitive topic, one that some health officials are trying to avoid and which has sparked a lot of handwringing in the media about how to report it.
The fear is that misinterpretation of the numbers will dissuade people from getting vaccinated. But, without the data, the important push for everyone to wear masks is weakened.
In Israel, about 60% of the population has the vaccination. An Israeli doctor says that most COVID-19 patients hospitalized at his hospital are fully vaccinated, and those with severe illness have also been vaccinated.
Talking with Channel 13 TV News on August 5, Dr. Kobi Haviv, medical director of Herzog Hospital in Jerusalem said that “85 to 90 percent of the hospitalizations are in fully vaccinated people,” and “95 percent of the severe patients are vaccinated.” Herzog Hospital specializes in nursing care for the elderly.
…Data from the Israeli Minister of Health in July suggested that the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine in preventing infection and symptomatic illness had dropped from 90 percent to only 39 percent and 41 percent, respectively. However, the levels of protection against severe illness (88 percent) and hospitalization (91.4 percent) remained high.
The Pfizer vaccine has been the only COVID-19 vaccine available for Israelis since it was authorized for use in December 2020.
Iceland’s top epidemiologist admits the vaccination is not achieving the herd immunity as hoped for:
While data shows vaccination is reducing the rate of serious illness due to COVID-19 in Iceland, the country’s Chief Epidemiologist Þórólfur Guðnason says it has not led to the herd immunity that experts hoped for. In the past two to three weeks, the Delta variant has outstripped all others in Iceland and it has become clear that vaccinated people can easily contract it as well as spread it to others, Þórólfur stated in a briefing this morning.
…The panel opens for questions. “What needs to happen for you to tighten restrictions, Þórólfur? You don’t sound very positive at the moment.”
Þórólfur says he has not decided on measures beyond August 13. He is in discussions with the Health Minister, and it is the government that must decide whether it is necessary to impose tighter restrictions. Þórólfur adds that at this time he will likely make recommendations in a different format than the memorandums he has previously sent to the Health Minister.
As a reminder, Iceland has over 70% of its population vaccinated, and nearly everyone over 16 has received their shots.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Iceland (93% of the population 16 years of age or older vaccinated) is experiencing its largest wave of Covid-19 yet. At this point, I think it is unreasonable to assume that increased vaccine coverage will result in herd immunity pic.twitter.com/k8mUZAtIGO
— Elías Eyþórsson (@eliaseythorsson) August 7, 2021
During another discussion, the Director of the National University Hospital Páll Matthíasson asserted that the pandemic is here to stay. He recommends that people turn the focus from lockdowns and restrictions to preparing hospitals for the new realities.
“This and other pandemics are here to stay,” Páll says. “We must strengthen the healthcare system so that it is not always on the brink of collapse.” We are all in the same boat in this society. It’s a pretty good boat despite everything, but we must work together to ensure success, Páll says.
Pfizer has announced that the development of a booster to target the delta variant. But what about all the other variants likely to arise?
One Swedish Professor thinks people might need five booster shots.
While many people have bragged about being “fully vaccinated” after taking two COVID-19 jabs, a Swedish professor says that as many as five shots may be needed to combat falling immunity.
“We don’t know how long the vaccine protects against serious illness and death,” said Karolinska Institute Professor Matti Sällberg. “This means that you pick the safe before the unsafe.”
Alternatively, it may be time to shift our desperate focus from vaccines to healthcare readiness. This includes readily available treatments allowing people to recover fully at cost-effective price points. The Iceland team may be the first group of epidemiologists who realize that a new approach may better respond to this virus.
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Comments
It remains overwhelmingly true that those least affected by the Chinese Death Kooties have been the fit and active.
So lets get people moving and fit and healthy and protect only those who need it the most.
@mailman – BUT HOW THEN WILL BIG-PHARMA MAKE TRILLIONS ?
Isn’t it clear now that the misdirection by the healthcare policy makers is designed to benefit big pharma? They do not want therapeutics and cheap remedies. The margins on those things are too low.
Big Pharma donates big money to political parties and candidates. Look who gets the most $$ and see which, if any, promote any policy other than what big pharma wants. Your health means nothing to them. In fact, an unhealthy population benefits them – more drugs to sell.
The whole healthcare-industrial complex has to be revamped and refocused on improving the actual health of the population.
Brilliant. I was just talking to a friend over the phone about all this and told her how quickly a friend improved after receiving the monoclonal antibody infusion…I asked why are we ignoring treatments that result in recovery to focus on vaccines and then answered my own question with “Big Pharma” — and then I read your comment which confirmed what I was thinking.
“So lets get people moving and fit and healthy and protect only those who need it the most.”
Yes! That’s the answer! A new government mandatory health program!
We can send everyone to work camps to get outside and exercise by breaking rocks and picking rice. Think about how strong and how healthy everyone will be! And the forced marches to the camps will be very healthful, too. The workers could live in tents or even sleep out in the open on the bare ground. Think of all the healthful fresh air!
Meanwhile we can concentrate on protecting those who most need it, like Biden and Obama and the rest of our societal elite. They need to be kept away from the masses who may be passing around this virus and other deplorable infestations by secluding them on large estates with plenty of buffer between themselves and any deplorable that may be wandering around in the wild, and guarded by large electrified fencing, armed guards, and vicious dogs.
They must be kept well supplied with every conceivable luxury so they will have no need to venture off their secluded estates except by private plane or limousine to visit other protected elites.
I understand, that eventually these elites will become bored of even these luxurious and spacious estates and will require additional living space, mien Fuhrer. This can easily be provided by increasing the population densities of the healthful work camps and ensuring maximum participation of the population in this program.
And to ensure our elites do not genetically deteriorate due to inbreeding, it will be advisable, even necessary, mien Fuhrer, to select from the deplorable worker population the best fit and most desirable physical specimens for the procreation and continuation of the elite population. And when these specimens are no longer fit and highly desirable, they may be sent back to the work camps and new ones brought forward!
Now that the vaccines have failed, mien Fuhrer, I see this as a reasonable and even necessary requirement for the maintenance of society going forward.
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Alcatraz just needs some minor dusting, and we’re good to go.
Instead of work camps maybe the so called adults could take a look at BMI tables and determine how much weight they need to lose?
If an individual adult isn’t within say 15% of BMI and are moaning about risk from Covid because other adults don’t choose to wear a mask or get a jab my suggestion is STFU and take a walk all the way to the gym. Sign up for a personal trainer and get to work removing yourself from several high risk categories.
So long as we allow the common cold to be named after Greek letters and soon, constellations, there will be no relief. It’s time to just ditch the masks. Stop wearing them. They can’t arrest us all.
Mocking them openly to peals of laughter by increasingly receptive audiences works wonders too. My favorite theme for mockery is Critical Clown Theory.
I’m about to go in for a doctor’s appointment. They require masking and I’ll do it to check in. Once in the exam room it comes off and unless they DEMAND it, I will not put it back on.
You are describing my life story these days. I wear a mask less than an hour per week.
I have noticed my doctors do not wear masks. Everyone else in the hospitals and offices do, but not the doctors. I find this odd. I asked one why he did not wear a mask. He simply said he hated them and do no good. I do not like the dual level compliance. The doctors are the elite of the medical community, They are not masking but are allowing enforcement upon everyone else.
I’ve never seen any drs not wear masks, I find that very hard to believe and as someone who has been in and out of hospital taking my Mrs to appointments my own experience is very different to yours
My PCP has that accommodation, on in the waiting room, off in the exam room (and I don’t put it back on when I leave). The hospitals vary OTOH. One does the temp scan and masks all the time, at least for my last radiology visit in May. Another ER at 0445 scanned and my mask came off in treatment area (drove the youngest son for uncontrolled bleeding after nasal surgery).
At the temp station, I run 96.6 to 96.9. The one taking the temperature looks at the meter and looks thoughtful. I just say, “I’m one of the cool kids…”.
/you expected anything different from a wiseacre like me?
They don’t need to arrest us all, they only need to arrest enough of us to intimidate the rest. Why else do you think they’re treating the Jan 6 protesters as they are? Because it’s a warning to anybody thinking about protesting the current round of measures.
All they’ve done was to raise the ante. If peaceful protestors are going to be treated like armed insurrectionists, there’s no additional risk in being as well armed and as insurrectionary next time as we can manage.
First point – what is the secondary infection rate for previously infected individuals vs infection rate for vaccinated individuals
That should indicate whether real covid or the vaccine gives real immunity
Re-infections, by there very absence from any reporting tells you all you need to know about reinfection rates.
Interestingly enough, a while ago I was listening to the radio when they had a breaking news report of a guy in America who had become the SECOND person (and the 5th in the entire FUCKING world) to catch the Chinese Death Kooties for a second time.
It really wasnt the burn the radio reporting had made it out to be. In fact, it was quite the opposite.
See my comment below regarding a nursing home located in west Texas.
Yep.
Like HCQ + Ivermectine + Azithromycin, for example.
But don’t tell anyone that I mentioned it. I don’t want to end up cancelled and/or imprisoned.
One of my clients owns some nursing homes.
One of the nursing homes had an outbreak of 9 patients that contracted covid after being fully vaccinated.
They did not report any patients catching covid in the outbreak that had previously had the real covid. (unfortunately, too small of a sample to draw any conclusions) but it would indicate that real covid provides much better immunity.
On the one hand, there must be full scientific integrity rather than wishful thinking in setting our public health policies. This includes full transparency.
On the other hand, we must find a way to allow for new clinical trials, collecting safety data, and being open to alternatives without social condemnation or social media censorship.
The only way to achieve both is to de-politicize the issue. When the polio vaccine was first released, it was not perfect, and after a few years a better Saben vaccine appeared. I don’t care if the Pfizer vaccine is perfect, but rather is it reasonably safe and effective? In any event, we should leave the door open to other, better COVID vaccines, improvements in the public health infrastructure and pandemic resilience.
Your proposal requires good faith which has been very absent from the majority of the public health and political establishment. They are unlikely to willingly allow an honest data driven assessment of their actions to be undertaken. They certainly haven’t so far.
They are, IMO, uninterested in honest data presented in an unemotional, dispassionate, logical manner. When challenged with direct evidence of their distortions of facts and the failure of their policies to achieve the promised result they continue to misrepresent the data, outright lie and deflect responsibility to others.
The best apples to apples comparison for the overall effectiveness of the vaccines is the outcomes of the clinical trial participants. Did the control group, which received a placebo, have different outcomes than those who received the vaccine? Have the different outcomes held up over time? How significant is the difference adjusted for age and health conditions?
Unfortunately that data is unavailable. Why? The control group was informed they were given a placebo shortly after FDA emergency authorization was granted.
I know what conclusions I draw from this.
Nothing much really shocks me anymore, but the control group being nuked is one.
The only thing that shocks me anymore is bare wires.
NO ACCOUNTABILITY = NO CHANGE
None of those who played games with numbers for the sake of politics and big Pharma been held accountable. NONE. WHO, CDC, NIH.
They feel they can get away with anything. Meanwhile we, the little people, suffer the full on enforcement of mask mandates, shutdowns and other edicts and whims of the elite.
Until there is accountability – nothing will change.
They’re still playing games with numbers. CDC has been memory holing web pages, including ones with death counts, and they’re doing things like temporarily rescinding the requirement that employers must report vaccine side effects. Then CDC reports the vaccines have no side effects, without mentioning they’re deliberately preventing the reporting of them.
The Pfizer vaccine isn’t merely imperfect, it’s actively dangerous. All the mRNA vaccines are. Not only is their rate of side effects atrocious, they aren’t sterilizing vaccines. That means they have little effect on virus circulation, and they actively promote viral mutation. Using them was a total violation of Virology 101.
You cannot convince me this isnt bioweaponry
The idea that this “virus” could possibly be contained and/or eradicated should have been abandoned a long time ago when it jumped national borders. Prominent virologists and epidemiologists have been warning about the futility of a mass vaccination campaign, and have urged instead a focus on early treatment.
If only the CDC and other officials would follow the real science and heed these voices, rather than worry about the stock portfolios of vaccine manufacturers.
CDC and NIH officials are far more concerned with covering their butts for funding ChiCom Gain of Function research* than even the financial well being of Pharma.
*This applies both to the current pandemic and also the research is apparently conducted under the auspices of the People’s Liberation Army and is applicable to bioweapons.
“The idea that this “virus” could possibly be contained and/or eradicated should have been abandoned a long time ago when it jumped national borders. ”
Like Duh!
everyone with common sense knows that
So, basically, the vaccines limit dying from it, but everyone is going to catch it eventually.
If the newsies and pols just reported that, that would go a long way to defusing things. Not holding my breath.
“So, basically, the vaccines limit dying from it,”
Perhaps. We do not have long-term data to know one way or the other. It’s a big gamble on a big experiment.
There is reason to believe this isn’t exactly gambling odds. Witness the data from Israel that shows the prevention of reinfection is declining drastically (presumably with the newer variant), but the positive effect on serious illness and hospitalizations is more than significant:
“…Data from the Israeli Minister of Health in July suggested that the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine in preventing infection and symptomatic illness had dropped from 90 percent to only 39 percent and 41 percent, respectively. However, the levels of protection against severe illness (88 percent) and hospitalization (91.4 percent) remained high.”
Edward,
Ok what is the outcome for those with naturally acquired immunity? Is it roughly comparable with the vaccine performance? Is the comparison adjusted for age and medical condition?
The false equivalence between vax and not vax is troubling. The correct comparison is naturally acquired immunity (recovered from Covid) v artificial immunity (vaccinated).
Tell me about those numbers in widespread studies and then compare the amount of additional benefit in performance from vaccination, if any, to the potential side effects of vaccination.
That is the apple to apple comparison.
As near as I can tell, people who’ve had it once don’t get it again.
But it looks like whether one has or has not gotten a vaccine does not seem to change whether or not one will get it.
That’s part of why I’m thinking the big mandatory vaccine push is overall stupid and counter productive.
I am reposting my comment – which has bearing on the relative effectiveness of vax or natural immunity –
“One of my clients owns some nursing homes.
One of the nursing homes had an outbreak of 9 patients that contracted covid after being fully vaccinated.
They did not report any patients catching covid in the outbreak that had previously had the real covid. (unfortunately, too small of a sample to draw any conclusions) but it would indicate that real covid provides much better immunity.”
anecdotal evidence appears that natural immunity is much stronger – but it is only ancedotal and not a study (obviously not peer reviewed)
Joe,
I understand the presence of anecdotal evidence but the point I am making is where are the large studies?
We pumped untold billions to public health for CDC, NIH ECT. They didn’t commission a few studies to gather, analyze and report re: outcomes for naturally acquired immunity v artificially acquired immunity.
The public health community routinely disregards naturally acquired immunity as if it was insignificant to the public policy discussion but they refuse to provide any data that demonstrate it is insignificant.
The control groups for the vaccine trials were compromised deliberately. Taken together that seems to indicate a purposeful and willing ignorance at best. At worst they are pushing a vaccine regime that isn’t necessary to extend the crisis and retain emergency powers.
The administration is choosing to leave a vacuum of information and theories about why they have done so. That vacuum is being filled by the skeptics in the public.
Are they choosing this path in a deliberate attempt to radicalize the public? If not why not? The answer looks more certain every day.
Spiking the expiration of the eviction moratorium. The WH pushing employers to mandate vax. The WH colluding with social media and legacy media to demonize the un-vax. Fauchi opining about surrendering individual liberty?
All most people want is a simple data set to make an informed decision. Provide the data that supports the vax for those with naturally acquired immunity and most will be convinced.
Unless the reason the data isn’t shown is because it doesn’t in fact support a vax for those people. Which is becoming more likely each day that the data isn’t provided.
“However, the levels of protection against severe illness (88 percent) and hospitalization (91.4 percent) remained high.”
The above statement is unclear. What is the rate of non-severe illness and non-hospitalization in those that have not been vaccinated or who have naturally acquired immunity? At best, the statement fails to inform without comparative and contextualizing data.
They’re deliberately not contextualizing data, which I think leads to an obvious conclusion, that the vaccine is not really as effective as they say (vaccinated people still have an immune system, which those claiming only vaccination creates herd immunity conveniently forget), and the vaccination program must be protected at all costs even if it isn’t medically effective. Why it must be protected is unclear, but one can imagine a number of unsavory motives besides mere money.
Agreed. We don’t have long term results from the vaccines. However we also do not have longer results from covid on its own, or covid after vaccination. One may have higher or lower, or comparable long term risks compared to the other.
However, at least the short term risks appear to be lower with vaccination, at least for people with comorbidities. Those including being over weight, having high blood pressure, or being over a certain age.
Ultimately it has to be a risk management decision.
And now that it is clear that it will not alter the likelihood of infection, and legitimate reason the gov’t may have had to compel this, even once they’ve cleared the legal hurdles evaporates.
But if the newsies and pols just reported that, then they’d have to answer uncomfortable questions like, “So why are you demanding that people who caught it naturally, still must get the vax?”
“So, basically, the vaccines limit dying from it, but everyone is going to catch it eventually.”
That, plus whatever unexpected side-effects will crop up eventually.
Thalidomide took about ten years. We haven’t even yet begun.
We still haven’t explained the magnet effect, other than the usual Bama & Biden Circus explanation, which consists of prefixing it with the words “baseless” and “debunked,” and then holding the curtain tight shut.
A question I haven’t seen addressed anywhere: do people who have the shot, then come down with the disease develop natural immunity afterwards? Do the vaccines inhibit the bodies natural immune response? Is it too soon to know? Is anyone tracking this?
Suspect it is too soon to know. I’d expect they would, simply because the immune system adapts that way to other recurring viruses, but I’d expect it would take about a year or so for there to be enough people who have both had a vaccine and had one of the variants and had had enough time to have been exposed to it afterwards.
My guess is the pandemic will have burned itself out by then, though, who knows?
Iceland’s Top Epidemiologist: COVID Vaccination Has Not Led to Herd Immunity
But a vaccine that still allows a person to become infected and transmit the virus on to other people was never designed to promote “herd immunity”. That was just a government fiction created to convince the
sheeplecitizens to vaccinate. And now that it’s become so clear that the vaccines are a bust people are actually saying it out loud without repercussion. I’s well past time to start concentrating on treatment of Covid over mass vaccination programs that have proven to be a failure.Virulent vaccines. Makeshift masks. Leaky lockdowns. Hampered natural immunity and treatments. Science precedes and often precludes [sociopolitical] consensus and policies.
“While many people have bragged about being “fully vaccinated” after taking two COVID-19 jabs, a Swedish professor says that as many as five shots may be needed to combat falling immunity.”
Fourteen.
Just to flatten the curve.
“12 jabs to flatten the curve!”
Iceland has had essentially zero deaths. That’s a pretty significant achievement. There are countries like Chile that have had high vaccination rates with the Chinese vaccines, and little change in death rate.
The US incident that had a high breakthrough rate involved large numbers of gay men at a Mardi Gras equivalent event. I’m going to bet the places that are reporting high numbers of breakthrough cases are unusual in some respect, and involve a lot of close indoor contact.
Not grocery shopping.
Yet he’s still foolishly emphasizing vaccination, when it’s the vaccines themselves that are driving the existence of vaccine-ignoring virus variants. mRNA vaccines aren’t sterilizing vaccines like the smallpox and polio vaccines are, that’s why they appear to have little effect on transmission and contraction. What is happening was entirely foreseeable, and a lot of people did foresee it, but they were silenced as “spreaders of disinformation”.
Darkhorse Podcasts put out a video today talking about a new paper that shows that, for people 45 and under, the vaccines have essentially no effect on hospitalization and deaths. There is a small effect for the 46-65 group, and the majority of benefit was seen by the 65+ group.
“… the majority of benefit was seen by the 65+ group.” Which is where The Bride and I are; also, her brother and sister who are about ten years older than we are. This is why we mostly ignore the back-and-forth about effectiveness, conspiracies, etc., etc., that the commenters on various blog articles prattle about.
If you want the vaccine or not, that’s your opinion. If you want to mask up or not, that’s also your opinion. Act accordingly. For us in the high risk demographic, we will follow our doctors’ advice.
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Exactly. Individual adults making individual medical decisions.
The issue is the mask Karen. The folks who feel compelled to enter personal space to harangue, harass and cause an incident.
If someone deliberately obstructs my path and deliberately impedes my ability to walk around them while entering my personal space; the distance my fist can travel, that’s a problem.
I simply mask them to move and step out of the social distance parameters. If not I inform them I feel threatened, turn around, take one step, halt and perform an about face with my elbow extended. If the elbow contacts them they were following behind me in violation of my personal space/Covid bubble.
Following people around in public spaces, harassing them after being told their behavior is interpreted as a threat isn’t a good idea for anyone. Note this isn’t in a store, I defer to the ownership policy on masks; their place so I follow their rules as we all should IMO.