> herd immunity will be reached at 70% vaccination + infected, ah no actually only vaccinated count and it's 90%... did I say 99%? No, it will be 100%!

70% is enough for the original Covid. Covid moved the goalposts to Delta which needs different numbers. This is not experts moving the goalposts, this is Covid changing on us - as was always expected to happen and why experts said we don't know what % is required until Israel showed 70% was enough for the original Covid strain.

It was 84% for the original covid. Anything lower was a lie.

I think 70% was part of the original messaging based on general epidemiology statistics.

It was probably updated once we found out more about Covid-19 Alpha, and later for Delta.

Mutations were obviously going to happen from the get go. When questioned about this exact thing "experts" still stated that 70% would prevent this from happening, until they were wrong.

70% of non receptive surrounding people is enough to stifle any virus.

What changed was whether the surrounding people were receptive to infection and capable of spreading it.

Weird how the least receptive populations were dominated by delta first.

Yeah, no. It started in mostly unvaccinated India.

And rapidly fell off. It only dominated highly vaccinated places.

You may wanna look into Japan's cases and covid measures again. They got fucked over hard by the Olympics that about 80% of the population was against. 3x as many cases as their previous worst wave, despite travel being banned from pretty much everywhere and virtually nobody opposing masks.

It will be interesting to see if those cases result in many deaths. Typically when viruses mutate they become less deadly, so there's a chance these new cases won't have nearly as negative an outcome as the previous waves. The data is still coming in, but initial numbers look like a negligible amount of deaths compared to their historical numbers.

Evidence suggests Delta may actually be slightly more lethal, all else being equal. But all is not equal, a lot of the most vulnerable folks are either dead or vaccinated now.

You have an overly rosy picture of Japan. Their population is very compliant and already used to masks as a way to avoid spreading disease, and they are still experiencing a surge in cases that has caused them to declare a state of emergency in the Tokyo area, and remove spectators from the paralympics.

Herd immunity happens when a disease can't spread because all people surrounding the infected person have enough immediate immunity to stifle its progress. Delta seems to be able to spread to people in the gap before the immune system recognises it, so it may be something that can't be stopped by herd immunity.

This is a pretty odd comparison to make. Governments are reacting to spikes in cases with restrictions in order to keep the public health system functioning within certain limits - ICUs becoming full is a serious issue which leads to loss of life for those that need an ICU bed, regardless of whether they need it because of Covid or something else.

The goalposts would not have moved if people actually put the health of their communities over their personal desires and convenience.

Other models are certainly possible, but only work in places where people have higher trust in their government, and think about collective welfare over their own individual selfishness. Unfortunately, people in the US (and much of the West) care too much about "mah lib-ur-tee" than doing their part to help keep their neighbors healthy.

Also I think your focus on Japan is a little weird; they went through their own bad time with COVID, and even consider the recent case of the large flare-ups surrounding the Olympics.