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Comment by point78 | Hacker News Reader

So halfway to herd immunity?

It was discussed in another thread that I'll try to dig up, but the percentage of the population required to reach herd immunity goes up the more contagious a virus is. If way more people are infected then we think, then it points to some of the higher R0 estimates being accurate and would therefore require a much higher portion of the population to be immune before we reach herd immunity.

Edit: Here it is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22819057

My understanding is it's (R0 - 1)/R0

So if R0 is 4 then 3/4 of the population is required to be immune before herd immunity kicks in.

Yeah, I'm not an epidemiologist but I think the principle is simple: it's just a matter of getting the actual transmission rate below 1, so that any outbreak will naturally die out. If in the absence of any immunity the average infected person infects 3 others, but now 2/3 of people are immune, then the average infected person will actually only infect one other. Ditto for a transmission rate of four and 3/4 immunity, and so on.

It's worth noting, though, that the natural tendency during an epidemic is for the total number of infections to exceed the herd immunity threshold; I think the phrase to google is 'herd immunity overshoot'.

(It's also worth noting the serious problems with this study, as pointed out by other commenters.)

> herd immunity overshoot

I saw that too when mucking with simple models. The percent infected overshoots (R0 - 1)/R0. So that is a threshold for herd immunity not the ultimate infection ratio. They're only equivalent under steady state conditions.

Also saw an study released by the CDC that estimated that the initial r0 in Wuhan was 5.8. Explains what happened in Northern Italy and New York. The epidemic achieved break out while most infected were still mildly ill or asymptomatic.

Go Cows!

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