Search Results for covid-19

Vaccines do provide immunity and can be used to achieve herd immunity

Herd immunity occurs when a significant portion of a population is immune to a pathogen, making it difficult for the pathogen to spread through the population. Apart from protecting vaccinated individuals, herd immunity provides indirect protection from infection even to individuals who are unable to be vaccinated. One strategy to achieve herd immunity is through vaccination, which provides protective immunity to vaccinated individuals.

Infectious diseases are caused by microorganisms; other factors may determine an individual’s susceptibility to infection, but the microorganism is still the cause

Factors like nutrition, genetics and age can influence an individual’s susceptibility to a microorganism, such as a virus or a bacteria. These factors make individuals more or less likely to develop infections after they were exposed to a microorganism. That being said, even individuals who are young and healthy can develop infectious diseases because the cause of infectious diseases is still the microorganism.

Going vegan may lead to fewer pandemics, but it won’t eliminate them completely

Zoonotic pathogens are microbes that jump from animals into humans and some zoonotic diseases do lead to global pandemics. However, because there are many routes that these pathogens can take to get into human populations, going vegan will not completely eliminate pandemics. It may lead to fewer pandemics, but a vegan world will not be a pandemic-free world.

Both viruses and bacteria cause disease; pathogenic viruses aren’t naturally created in the body as a response to damage

Pathogenic viruses and bacteria cause infectious diseases and, for both of these microbes to cause a disease, they first have to be caught, they are not generated spontaneously inside one’s body. In the case of viruses, these microbes infect cells and replicate inside them, using the cell’s machinery to produce more copies of the pathogenic virus that can leave the infected cells and infect new cells and also new individuals.

Vaccines are safe and aren’t associated with autoimmune disease, contrary to claim in viral video by chiropractor Steven Baker

Autoimmune diseases are the result of a person’s immune system wrongly attacking the person’s own cells. Research has indicated genetics and environmental factors, such as certain viral infections like the flu, can make a person more likely to develop an autoimmune disease. Numerous studies examining a potential association between vaccination and autoimmune diseases didn’t find a higher incidence of autoimmune diseases in vaccinated people compared to unvaccinated people.

Misleading Wall Street Journal opinion piece makes the unsubstantiated claim that the U.S. will have herd immunity by April 2021

“The article’s claim that the U.S. is near herd immunity rests on two numbers: 1) the detection of infections by testing (claimed to be 10 – 25 percent) and 2) the infection fatality rate (claimed to be 0.23 percent). Using the same number of deaths as the author indicates that 0.15%/0.6% = 25% of the U.S. population has been infected, rather than two-thirds as the author claims. Thus, the author’s argument that 55 – 66 percent of the U.S. population has already been infected and has immunity is not supported by available data.”

Vaccines are useful even when there is a treatment for a disease, contrary to claim by Lee Merritt in The New American video

Vaccines provide benefits even if there is a treatment available and if the survival rate of a disease is high. Unlike treatments, vaccines prevent a disease, thereby averting the risks associated with the disease. Furthermore, vaccines help to build herd immunity in a population, thereby protecting vulnerable individuals from severe disease and death. Randomized clinical trials showed that hydroxychloroquine provides no meaningful benefit for hospitalized COVID-19 patients and doesn’t prevent COVID-19.