Is COVID strategy moving towards herd-immunity?!

[lashto]

As each day passes, and you remain uninfected, does your chance of becoming infected go up or down?

It's (close to) impossible to precisely quantify that but here's an attempt to 'simplify' the question.

The are only two states "uninfected" and "infected" and the coin-flip probabilistic model can be applied. The longer you keep flipping "uninfected", the bigger the chances that the next flip will be "infected". This is of course not an accurate model but could be the baseline for all other models since it is ~independent of (all?) other factors.
In other words: unless you/somebody/something actively works on lowering the "infected" odds, they will keep increasing (fast).

Wearing a mask will lower the odds, a vaccine will be a huge (but only one-time) lowering, etc. One of the "best" scenarios I can think of is being on a spaceship that flies away from earth. The "infected" odds should actually decrease every day in that case (but still never reach zero).
Bottom line: if you want to avoid the "infected" flip, you/somebody/something must to do a lot of work. And keep doing it 'forever'.

P.S,
Not sure if "more work forever" is what you/everyone wanted to hear

 

[onofno]

Onofno, when is the return to Fall classes in France?
Also, when is the flu season starting?
And finally when does Winter start?
It also seems to be the trend nowadays in many places to topple statues of people who don't exactly represent our true ideal and values in life. I like to have more statues of dogs and cats and whales we love.

Temp today/now 11:40 in Toulouse : 26°C / 78.8*F and this afternoon : 31°C / 87.8°F
Wearing a mask in Toulouse is mandatory everywhere.

About statues : destroying statues that were put up in another time (400/200 years ago... ) when values weren't the same as today is so stupid...

- on September 1 all primary schools and colleges in France opened their doors to students. We start going to school in 12 grade until 1st grade then university.
- Flu season is the same than in Canada... December until April.
- Winter depends where you live in France... in the South by the Mediterranean Sea where is my second home (200km from Toulouse), we turn on the heating in mid-november. But December is not cold... In Toulouse the temperature is not the same, take a look at the graph.

We use celsius degrees all over Europe but UK. I don't criticize UK, more than 12 millions British are coming on holiday in France every year (and also 13 millions Germans...) 85 millions tourists are coming on vacation in France each year and we are 66 millions French people.

 

[Harmonie]

We use celsius degrees all over Europe but UK

Really ? What are the Brits using then ?

https://www.bbc.com/weather/2643743

 

[RayDunzl]

Really ? What are the Brits using then ?

https://www.bbc.com/weather/2643743

Wow. Is it winter there already?

 

[RayDunzl]

One of the "best" scenarios I can think of is being on a spaceship that flies away from earth. The "infected" odds should actually decrease every day in that case (but still never reach zero).

 

[lashto]

We use celsius degrees all over Europe but UK
Really ? What are the Brits using then ?

for the rest of the EU it doesn't matter what the Brits use, they measure the temperature on the wrong side of the road anyway


I am however a bit worried about the strange "reverse-schooling" they seem to be doing in France:

We start going to school in 12 grade until 1st grade .. then university.

 

[Harmonie]

Aren't these SF hilarious when getting older ...

 

[onofno]

onofno : "We use celsius degrees all over Europe but UK"

harmonie : Really ? What are the Brits using then ?

https://www.bbc.com/weather/2643743

Countries using the Fahrenheit scale
For a long time, most English speaking countries, or those under the influence of England, used the so-called Imperial units system, which applies the Fahrenheit scale for temperature measurement.

When did they change from Fahrenheit to Celsius ?

 

[mansr]

We use celsius degrees all over Europe but UK

Really ? What are the Brits using then ?

https://www.bbc.com/weather/2643743

British Thermal Units, obviously.

 

[mansr]

The are only two states "uninfected" and "infected" and the coin-flip probabilistic model can be applied. The longer you keep flipping "uninfected", the bigger the chances that the next flip will be "infected". This is of course not an accurate model but could be the baseline for all other models since it is ~independent of (all?) other factors.
In other words: unless you/somebody/something actively works on lowering the "infected" odds, they will keep increasing (fast).

You need to go and refresh your statistics knowledge RIGHT NOW.

 

[BDWoody]

The longer you keep flipping "uninfected", the bigger the chances that the next flip will be "infected".

That's not how I learned it...

Vegas would shut down pretty quick.

 

[RayDunzl]

You need to go and refresh your statistics knowledge RIGHT NOW.

I had to bite my tongue, each coin flip being independent.

 

[lashto]

talking about ways to improve your chances against the "relentless" odds and viruses, I do use an immune booster combo since ~March. It was (more or less) a lucky guess in March but the combo was investigated quite a bit in the meantime and I only seen positive news. Still no definitive study but some are in progress.

I did not observe any side effects, I generally feel better and had no COVID up to now. So, it surely works!
At the very least, the combo won't do any harm and should have beneficial effects on one's health: vitC is well known already and quercetin seems to be ~same as safe and with many positive effects.

 

[lashto]

I had to bite my tongue, each coin flip being independent.

that is one way to look at it.

For my analogy the coin flips are not exactly independent. The equivalent coin-flip question is: what are the chances that you keep flipping the same "uninfected" for xx days in a row? Or an easier to grasp/calculate equivalent: the chances to flip xx coins at once and all be "uninfected". That probability lowers very fast with the xx number of coins.

Or a more concrete version: say you have 36500 days left, i.e. 36500 coin-flips. The only success scenario is that all 36500 coin flips show the same "uninfected" result. Doesn't really matter if you flip daily or all at once, your one and only success scenario requires 36500 "uninfected" coin-flips. That probability is awfully low and decreases exponentially with the number of days.

@mansr no I dont't
@BDWoody what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

P.S.
more generally, I did not say that my analogy was the best or even good. Just an "attempt"...

 

[Harmonie]

talking about ways to improve your chances against the "relentless" odds and viruses, I do use an immune booster combo since ~March. It was (more or less) a lucky guess in March but the combo was investigated quite a bit in the meantime and I only seen positive news. Still no definitive study but some are in progress.

I did not observe any side effects, I generally feel better and had no COVID up to now. So, it surely works!
At the very least, the combo won't do any harm and should have beneficial effects on one's health: vitC is well known already and quercetin seems to be ~same as safe and with many positive effects.

Why not eat healthy then ... ?

Quercetin (also known as 3,3′,4′5,7-pentahydroxyflavone) is a widely distributed plant flavonoid, found in several vegetables, leaves, seeds, and grains, where it is conjugated with residual sugars to form quercetin glycosides

 

[lashto]

Why not eat healthy then ... ?

Quercetin (also known as 3,3′,4′5,7-pentahydroxyflavone) is a widely distributed plant flavonoid, found in several vegetables, leaves, seeds, and grains, where it is conjugated with residual sugars to form quercetin glycosides

if humanity's future depends on eating healthy, those coin-flip chances might be a better choice

 

[mansr]

that is one way to look at it.

Which also happens to be the correct way, all other ways being incorrect.

For my 'analogy' the coin flips are not exactly independent. The equivalent coin-flip question is: what are the chances that you keep flipping the same "uninfected" for xx days in a row? Or another equivalent: the chances to flip xx coins at once and all be "uninfected". That probability lowers very fast with the xx number of coins.

That doesn't even begin to describe the spread of a disease within a population, which is what we are talking about here.

@mansr no I dont't

True, you can also stop talking about statistics.

If you want to discuss probabilities, start with something that at least somewhat resembles reality. In a very simplified model, individuals have one of three states: uninfected, contagious, or immune. Each day, the probability of an individual transitioning from uninfected to contagious depends on the number of contagious individuals in the population. An infected individual remains contagious for a fixed time, then transitions to the immune state and stays there. In this model, the number of contagious individuals (and thus the daily risk of infection) increases exponentially at first. After some time, the infection rate starts falling due to a large number already being immune (herd immunity). Shortly after this, the number of contagious individuals starts decreasing, and with it the risk for those still uninfected, until it reaches zero. This is trivially simulated using Matlab or similar software.

 

[lashto]

Which also happens to be the correct way, all other ways being incorrect.

oh my, the correction platoon started firing early today . I can hardly agree with a single word in that phrase. So I won't even start.

That doesn't even begin to describe the spread of a disease within a population, which is what we are talking about here.

of course it doesn't. That's why I specifically said that it does not.

Sorry, I have no wish to join your correct/incorrect 'debate'. On a deeper/philosophical level, I mostly prefer "everything is connected to everything else" (and not even coinflips are 100% independent). On the same level, I try to avoid the correct/incorrect frameworks because IMHO those only apply to pure math. Everything else belongs to a better/worse framework, where better & worse depend on the observer and there is no single "correct" answer.

In any case, you are welcome to post your perfect math model for Ray's question, which quantifies all variables with 100% precision and it is provably the only correct one. Aside from that, I wish you 36500 "uninfected" flips. Or centanni. Just choose the one you think it's more correct

 

[mansr]

On a deeper/philosophical level, I mostly prefer "everything is connected to everything else" (and not even coinflips are 100% independent).

That's not a particularly productive way of seeing things.

All else being equal, your risk of getting infected tomorrow does not increase simply because you make it safely through the day today. It just doesn't. You are of course free to pretend otherwise, just as you may pretend that 2 + 2 equals 5 or that Ethernet cables have a sound.

 

[mnemonix]

That's not a particularly productive way of seeing things.

All else being equal, your risk of getting infected tomorrow does not increase simply because you make it safely through the day today. It just doesn't. You are of course free to pretend otherwise, just as you may pretend that 2 + 2 equals 5 or that Ethernet cables have a sound.

A coin flip is not a good analogy, but whilst the odds of flipping heads or tails is always 50-50, the odds of flipping say, n heads in a row, is not and changes with changing values of n. This is where his mistaken belief that the odds of being infected changes is coming from I believe.