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Amish community in Lancaster County reaches herd immunity from Covid-19 (fox29.com)
14 points by SQL2219 on Aug 5, 2021 | hide | past | favorite | 7 comments


> Experts at a New Holland Borough Healthcare Center said around 90% of households dealt with at least one coronavirus case after churches reopened last year.

I’m not confident that that metric equates to what that doctor says it does. There’s no mention of how an infected person in a household was treated. I guess the assumption is that they were not quarantined from the rest of the household, but I’d like to see self-reports if nothing else.

The Amish are already a fairly isolated group, so (speculation) if most of their COVID cases are “people who have more dealings with Englishers,” which I would expect to be the case, then even if their incidence is lower than reported, their more external-facing folks might have a high-enough level of immunity to stop it spreading. It depends a lot on how people with COVID-like symptoms are treated within the community though, and this story and its links say nothing about that.


Just wait until they get to meet delta. That thing has killed four people I know in Missouri and Arkansas who refused to get a vaccine. Past infection with alpha did not protect them.


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millions of doses have been injected, far outweighing the risks of going without. Stop with the antivax thing, thanks.


Odd that they did not mention what mortality rate they experienced. With 90% of households affected, it would be a valuable data point to have.


I’d expect it to be much lower than other populations. The Amish population is relatively young, and controlling for age, very healthy. A 4% obesity rate (trusting the first google result).


Plus they spend a lot of time outside performing manual labor, and the increased sun exposure probably helps reduce vitamin D deficiency, a risk factor for COVID symptoms.


All study participants exhibited a distinct lack of exposure to 24/7 pervasive Pharmaganda. Results inconclusive.




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