Population growth is actually slowing, and there is now a lot of doubt whether we’ll ever hit the 10bn mark that was predicted for the mid 21st century.
Most western democracies are experiencing falling birth rates to the point where it’s actually a problem. And developing nations, as they experience urbanisation, greater access to education, and women gain control of their bodies, are following suit.
The problem is consumption. It’s not, and never really has been, about the number of people. It’s about the impact of those people on the planet, and the resource intensiveness that follows development. Ten billion people with the carbon footprint of a sub-Saharan African isn’t a problem. Ten billion people with the carbon footprint of an average American would be catastrophic.
birth rate is marginally declining across the world, however areas of poverty are still on an upward trajectory. India is expected to surpass China for population within a decade.
Although the effectiveness of the vaccine in terms of reducing severe disease and death is relatively binary, you can’t really say they same about its effectiveness in reducing transmission.
In these vaccinated that had high viral loads, who infected them? Were they in an environment where multiple people were infected like in a nightclub? We re they around a single unvaccinated person that was shedding the virus at a high rate? Without controlled tests on this I don’t think we can ever know.
Without knowing how and when these people were infected and what amount of the virus they were exposed to, we can’t understand how that situation came to be. Maybe if the data was coming out of NZ where test and trace probably would allow you to know who infected you, but given this data is coming from a country where the virus is running pretty freely it’s not possible to know.
The global fertility rate was 3.2 in 1990. It’s now less than 2.5, and it’s predicted to be 2.2 by 2050. The rate of population growth has fallen to around 1%
That’s more than a marginal decline.
As I said, we’re now very unlikely to hit 10bn as we once thought.
Over the last 100 years, population has quadrupled, but energy consumption has increased twelvefold. It is simply not tenable to blame the crises we’re facing on the worlds rural poor - the last communities who traditionally have high birthrates - when the carbon footprint is minuscule compared to rich, small familied, western people.
We have to be very careful talking about population in the context of the planets limits. It is a deflection often used by racists and climate change obfuscators to push blame for the problem from high consumption western lifestyles into the people who contribute least to the problem and are suffering the worst impacts.
Argument = personal opinion being shared. I’m saying I cannot follow your train of thought, in part because you are using data to support a position in ways that do not seem to follow.
This case in MA is a good example of that. This outbreak was very well covered at the time, and it’s important to point out it occurred during a gay pride event among a cohort who take contagious diseases seriously and so there was a very high level of vaccination among the population. When vaccination approaches 100% you also expect cases to be higher in the vaccinated group, as was the case here. That was not the point though. the point was how few cases there actually were under the circumstances, demonstrating that despite the fact that vaccinated people can get sick and transmit it to others, the likelihood of both is very much reduced.
Ergo, viewing vaccinations for diseases like this as a personal choice is not correct.
The JHU piece makes this statement, which is a misreading of the gay pride data. THE NEW DATA SAYS THAT A FULLY VACCINATED PERSON WHO EXPERIENCES A BREAKTHROUGH INFECTION CAN SPREAD THE VIRUS JUST AS MUCH AS AN UNVACCINATED PERSON.
The symptomatic cases there had similar levels of a surrogate measure of viral load. That does not mean they are just as likely to spread the infection as a non vaccinated person because the piece then goes on to say, those levels diminsh much quicker.
Amusingly we do. As I said, this was at a gay pride event. The sorts of activities that were occurring were not very socially distanced, and as its a community that takes public health very seriously there was actually really impressive contact tracing done.
This has been covered multiple times. See this thought experiment with made up numbers…
If there are 1000 people and 90% are vaccinated then there are
900 vaccinated
100 unvaccinated
If we just make up numbers that demonstrate a significant protective effect of the vaccine, lets say a breakthrough rate of 25% for the vaccinated and 75% for the unvaccinated, we can show the problem. If you run the math, there are 225 cases among the vaccinated, more cases than there are unvaccinated people. The result, the majority of the cases are among the vaccinated. It’s just a quirk of maths.
There was a time when I would have whole heartedly agreed with you…except that I have heard of so many positive cases amongst family and friends in the last few weeks. A friend’s wife has just recovered after being on a ventilator. All have been double jabbed and had mild to severe symptoms. Both my wife and I are getting tested tomorrow as we have both started with cold symptoms, sore throats and aches.
So having a jab does not mean you can’t infect others…unfortunately.
No it doesn’t but it does reduce the time a person is infectious.
My point here is that you’ve got people that are refusing to take a vaccine for their own freedoms and yet they can have an enormous affect on others around them and overall freedoms.
It just doesn’t register with these people that the longer that they provide an avenue for the virus to continue the longer the restrictions continue. So by being against restrictions now results in longer restrictions down the line.
This protective mechanism was proven through in vivo tests on hamsters; specimens that were administered the antibody were protected against infection even after receiving a highly infectious dose.
CHUV and EPFL now plan to build on these promising results in association with a start-up company which will perform clinical development and production of the antibody-containing drug, through cooperation and intellectual property agreements. Clinical trials of the drug should begin in late 2022.
pretty strong indicator that the scientific community is preparing for a long-term investment in the fight on this virus.
Christian Drosten has been talking about something similar, essentially saying at some point he might ‘want’ a sort of ‘natural booster infection’ to further strengthen the response in the respiratory tract. Of course many people here chose to misunderstand what he was trying to say.
Nobody’s been right on everything though, I mean that’s just unrealistic.
I think Drosten criticised the UK extended dosing schedule, which has proven to have been the right move and didn’t he also, wrongly, question the UK suggestions that the Kent variant was more virulent?
I’d really like to know more about the German response though, given how significantly fewer deaths they’ve had to endure. What were the differences in approach that would explain this (other than those that can be attributed to the differences in strains)?
He said for like a day that he needed to see more data on the Alpha variant. Of course his statements were misrepresented and overblown by the UK media, most of whom couldn’t read a sentence in German if their life dependend on it anyway. Overall he’s been mostly right in my opinion, always ready to adjust opinion when new data/evidence comes in and imo was a huge factor for the better response to the first wave in Germany. Shit started to get wrong when politicians stopped listening to him.
Maybe I should add that his statements get misrepresented and taken out of context regularly by German media as well, so it’s not just about sheer language issues. Overall the media didn’t cover themselves in glory in this whole shitshow imo.