Psychological Herd Immunity

An interesting phenomenon occurs in many epidemics that the experts can’t really explain. Once the disease really takes hold, the curve begins to rise more swiftly than the government reacts to it. Everything seems to be too little, too late. And then, gradually, with nobody taking any specific action, the epidemic tapers off.

Why?

The only explanation anyone has come up with is a change in attitude in the population. Until things get really tough, everybody thinks, “It’s not going to happen to me.” Then the number of ill people rises until the average citizen starts wondering, “Crap! Is this going to happen to me?” And when that idea reaches the tipping point in the society, larger and larger numbers of people begin to naturally self-isolate and follow all the protocols the government was tearing its hair out trying to force them to do all along. I’m going to call this tipping point Psychological Herd Immunity.

Over the Past Year

Of course, many of us were already willing to believe the science, and were anxious to take whatever steps necessary to protect ourselves and our neighbors. Good thing, too. It was the middle of this summer before anyone in my circle of friends got COVID. It was September before a member of my family was affected, and that wasn’t a serious case. If I had been depending on personal experience and wishful thinking, how would I have reacted? Fortunately, the vast majority of Canadians were willing to take proper action despite not being affected directly. Pat ourselves on the back and look around. It wasn’t enough.

The Lemming Instinct

When a large segment of the population in one area (like a whole province) insists on careening ahead with eyes firmly shut, none of this works. At the same time as Alberta is sinking rapidly into the Fifth Wave, Premier Jason Kenney is lifting restrictions on small parties for unvaccinated people! Why? “Because there’s no use having a law when nobody will obey it.”

So there you have it. Until the population reaches Psychological Herd Immunity, you can’t force them to save themselves. You certainly can’t make them start thinking about anyone else.

What Good is This?

Well, perhaps I’ve just stated the obvious. Giving the problem a name isn’t the silver bullet we’ve all been waiting for. Vaccines would have been that solution several months ago, but too large a segment of the population had not reached the psychological tipping point, and they just kept on spreading the disease, causing the fourth, or Darwinian wave. The hope of everyone else was that this segment of the population would naturally thin themselves out. They would definitely hit the point where huge numbers of themknew someone who had been seriously ill or died, which would push them towards Psychological Immunity.

Then Came Omicron

The new variant has changed all that. We no longer have the time to wait for the disease to take its normal course, because there’s too great a risk that nature will move faster than human group psychology.

Internationally

And the human race has a problem with the global situation. The Psychological Herd Immunity point for the world population is when the developed nations realize that unless they put serious resources into getting the rest of the world vaccinated, the global hot spots will continue to churn out new variants, faster than Science can come up with solutions.

It’s interesting to note that, according to one epidemiologist interviewed on CBC last week, the original strain of COVID has pretty much died out. The steps we took this year were enough to solve last year’s problems.

A lot of good that does us now. Many jurisdictions are going back to those old methods, which is all very well, but it’s a new threat and needs new thinking.

The Bottom Line

I’m sorry, but at this moment I’m not handing out any solutions. I’m trying to get a handle on our problems, to set up some ideas so people can discuss them. At least we might be moved into a productive line of thinking.

Over to you, folks.

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.