Covid 19 Herd Immunity Calculator Released - Lets high schoolers track Herd immunity progress
Corrales, New Mexico: Care Maps, Inc., today
announced the “Covid 19 Herd Immunity Calculator”, a web-based interactive tool,
to monitor vaccinations and the status of herd immunity in multiple states.
Contrary to popular opinion, the Johns Hopkins University
(JHU) Covid 19 data shows that the threshold for Herd immunity is not 75%
vaccination. Care Maps calculator shows
that 44 states have reached threshold for Herd immunity as of April 28, 2021. Since none of them are even close to the 75% vaccination
limit, they are unaware of having reached this goal. Meanwhile, high schoolers can use the link
below to access the Herd immunity calculator and spread the good news to adults.
The basis for the calculator is the discovery of an exact
solution to the 94 year-old SIR model by a New Mexico scientist, Dr. Jacob
Kuriyan. This solution predicts the
onset of Herd immunity when just 25% of the population is immunized through
recovery or vaccination or a combination.
“The model equations were difficult to solve and only approximate
solutions were available. And so, the
relationship of Herd immunity onset to vaccinations remained hidden,” said Dr.
Kuriyan.
The onset of Herd immunity is precisely
when the size of the epidemic begins to decrease, when the numbers who recover
exceed the new cases and it is an easy formula to calculate using daily
values of 
published by JHU. To view the results, here’s the link to
the Herd immunity map.
Herd immunity is not the flash of lightning that will signal
the end of the pandemic. It is more a process, a start of the journey. But it is a good metric to track progress, as
societal rules change and as more get vaccinated. And the Herd immunity calculator is a simple
tool to keep everyone informed, as we work towards ending the pandemic.
Many critical issues remain and here are a few.
The states that reached the threshold of Herd immunity, still
have large pools of infected people remaining; without adequate safety
measures, the pandemic can easily revive, especially amongst the
unvaccinated. “Infections progress
geometrically, in leaps, while recoveries move arithmetically, in small steps”,
said Dr. Kuriyan. And India’s second
surge is a reminder to not let the guard down while mitigating their transmissions.
The refuseniks will continue to pose a threat of resurgence
and add to our costs. Perhaps insurers will
bail us out by slapping a copay for the unvaccinated who seek treatment. As Charles Colson once observed, when you
grab them by their wallet, “their hearts and minds will follow.”
We need sound policies that will balance the responsibility
of the state with its residents. Reopening
the economy in phases is fine. But if
spikes in infections occur, restrictions must be reinstated – according to proven
formulae.
The rush to reopen schools is based on assuming that Covid
19 is mainly an adult disease. The variants in India suggest that younger
folks are no longer exempt. We should
rather err on the side of caution, as the head of CDC, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, has
urged, and have a plan to react rapidly, should the variants appear in the US.
The paper with the details of the calculation has not been
peer reviewed. It can be read here:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.05.21251577v1
* This article was originally published here
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