tail -f /dev/mind

My social media platforms are stuck in an anti-vax algorithm and I'm being shown tons of ragebait anti-vax posts. I know I need to stop interacting with the posts in order for the algorithm(s) to free me of this hell, but I haven't been able to yet — they just keep sucking me in.

Anyway, I see comments like the following about herd immunity:

herd immunity isn't a thing. Or was it just not a covid thing???

This is a comment from someone on a social media post about the measles outbreaks we are experiencing. It seems people are either really confused or blissfully ignorant, so here's my response to this kind of commentary.

Herd immunity requires all three of these to be true: that the virus is spread by human to human contact, does not rapidly mutate, and we have sterilizing immunity (vaccines).

Flu, COVID, norovirus etc. do not have the capability for herd immunity because it only takes just one of those three things to not be true for a pathogen for herd immunity to not work. In this case, rapid mutation is the main issue. The vaccines we make for the flu are usually about ~40% effective at sterilization immunity (preventing influenza) because the flu virus mutates; this is the same case for COVID. The COVID vaccines were not sterilizing vaccines, meaning they were not to prevent being infected by COVID, but are used to decrease the serious complications from the virus — and additionally, COVID mutates rapidly.

Measles, polio, diphtheria, and smallpox are some examples where herd immunity can exist. We have created sterilizing immunity vaccines to prevent infection and these pathogens have been consistently the same for decades and are transmitted by human to human contact.

Pathogens like tetanus we can vaccinate for personal protection, but even if 100% of people have been vaccinated, we can still get tetanus by stepping on a rusty nail as it isn't transmitted person to person — it is environmental only; so this means that herd immunity doesn't work on pathogens like that or animal based vectors like rabies or malaria.

I don't know if anyone will actually read this and think about it, and if you don't, that's fine. Someone else might find it useful.

#health

Over the past few months, I've been watching This Is Us on Netflix. Honestly, it's an incredibly emotional show that hits me in the feels. I know I missed the boat when it first aired nearly a decade ago. I remember seeing friends post about it on social media back then, but life was so busy that I couldn't commit to following a series. Still, it was clear the show sparked a lot of conversation online.

When I finally started watching it a few months ago, I quickly found myself hooked. But by the time I hit Season 3, I had to take a break. The emotional weight of it all just got to me, and I needed to press pause on the feels for a bit. Last night, though, I decided to jump back in, and wow. One scene really got to me.

In the episode, Kevin is talking to his niece Tess about coming out, and he says something that really stuck out to me:

I think we go through this life slowly but surely, just collecting these little pieces of ourselves that we can't really live without until eventually, we have enough of them to feel whole.

Awesome!