This is not a censored article, but one about how easily some Amish communities achieved herd immunity without significant death rates, which means those supporting herd immunity early on were right.
An Amish community in Pennsylvania has become 'the first in the US to achieve herd immunity to COVID-19' after 90% of them became infected when they reopened churches last year.
www.dailymail.co.uk
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Amish community in Pennsylvania becomes first in US to achieve herd immunity after reopening churches led to 90% of households being infected with the virus last year
- The Plain community in Lancaster County has become the 'first to achieve her immunity,' according to a local administrator of a medical center in the area
- Allen Hoover of the Parochial Medical Center said that 90% of households became infected with virus when they resumed church services late last spring
- As Hoover observed, faith in herd immunity prompted members of community to relax on key mitigation efforts such as masking and social distancing
- It's unknown whether achieving herd immunity in 2020 would be beneficial now
An Amish community in
Pennsylvania has become 'the first in the US to achieve herd immunity to
COVID-19' after 90 per cent of their households became infected with the virus when they resumed church services late last spring.
The administrator of a medical center in the heart of the Amish community in New Holland Borough estimates as many as 90 per cent of Plain families have since had at least one family member infected, and that this religious enclave achieved what no other community in the country has: herd immunity.
'So, you would think if COVID was as contagious as they say, it would go through like a tsunami; and it did,' said Allen Hoover, an Old Order Mennonite and administrator of the Parochial Medical Center, a clinic that primarily serves the Plain community.
Public health officials and epidemiologists did not dispute the widespread outbreak Hoover described. But they voiced concern that a misplaced perception of herd immunity in a population that makes up 8 per cent of Lancaster County may compromise the effort to turn the tide on the pandemic.
As Hoover observed, faith in herd immunity has prompted members of the Plain community to relax on key mitigation efforts such as masking and social distancing, and they may see little reason to be vaccinated.
Additionally, it is unknown whether achieving herd immunity last year would be beneficial now.
Six infectious disease experts with whom LancasterOnline spoke expressed unease with a reliance on the notion the Plain community had achieved herd immunity. And they pointed out that if not the case, past infections and existing antibodies may provide limited protection.
'Herd immunity is only true at a given point in time,' said Eric Lofgren, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Washington State University. 'It's not a switch that once it gets thrown, you're good. It'll wear off.'
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