Jeffrey Tucker on herd immunity and the World Health Organization

Herd immunity is a fascinating observation that you can trace to biological reality or statistical probability theory, whichever you prefer. It is certainly not a “strategy” so ignore any media source that describes it that way. When a virus kills its host – that is, when a virus overtaxes the body’s ability to integrate it, its host dies and so the virus does not spread to others. The more this occurs, the less it spreads. If the virus doesn’t kill its host, it can hop to others through all the usual means. 

When you get such a virus and fight it off, your immune system encodes that information in a way that builds immunity to it. When it happens to enough people (and each case is different so we can’t put a clear number on it, especially given so many cross immunities) the virus loses its pandemic quality and becomes endemic, which is to say predictable and manageable. Each new generation incorporates that information through more exposure. 

This is what one would call virology/immunology 101.  It’s what you read in every textbook.  It’s been taught in 9th-grade cell biology for probably 80 years.  Observing the operations of this evolutionary phenomenon is pretty wonderful because it increases one’s respect for the way in which human biology has adapted to the presence of pathogens without absolutely freaking out. 

And the discovery of this fascinating dynamic in cell biology is a major reason why public health became so smart in the 20th century.  We kept calm.  We managed viruses with medical professionals: doctor/patient relationships.  We avoided the Medieval tendency to run around with hair on fire but rather used rationality and intelligence. 

One day, this strange institution called the World Health Organization – once glorious because it was mainly responsible for the eradication of smallpox – suddenly decided to delete everything I just wrote from cell biology basics.  It literally changed the science in a Soviet-like way.  It removed with the delete key any mention of natural immunities from its website.  It took the additional step of actually mischaracterizing the structure and functioning of vaccines.

~ Jeffrey Tucker, "The World Health Organization Oversold the Vaccine and Deprecated Natural Immunity," Brownstone Institute, August 29, 2021