@gardenman wrote:
Those assuming a vaccine is just around the corner should remember that HIV has been around since the mid-seventies and there's still no vaccine. Four coronaviruses are responsible for many of the common colds we get and there's no common cold vaccine.
The good news is Covid-19 almost seems to be creating its own vaccine. A recent (6/22/2020) Penn State study (here's the link if anyone's interested. https://news.psu.edu/story/623797/2020/06/22/research/initial-covid-19-infection-rate-may-be-80-time... ) that looks at influenza-like illnesses this year compared to past years, finds that the virus was likely 80+ times more widespread than reported in March. They report that their findings show that 8.7 million people had the virus instead of the 100,000+ that's been reported.
If you assume their report of 8.7 million infected is correct and you look at the number of deaths as of March 31st (4,216) you get a death rate of 0.048% which is half that of the "typical" flu's death rate of 0.1%.
If their numbers are correct (and personally I have some doubts as NJ's death rate even if you assume everyone in the state had the virus is still higher than that, but those are their numbers) then there's a 99.952% chance of you surviving Covid-19.
If there were truly 8.7 million Americans with the virus in March, then the number now infected would be vastly higher. Officially now we have 2.5 million people with confirmed cases. If that number is also off eighty-fold then the real number of infected would be more like 200 million. We'd be getting very close to herd immunity at that number.
Reports indicate that the vast majority of people (80% is commonly cited) have no symptoms whatsoever and an additional 15% have mild to moderate symptoms with only 5% having more serious issues. The deaths from Covid-19 are dropping even as the number of cases increases which implies that the commonly circulating form has evolved into a less deadly version.
If the virus is as widespread as the Penn State reports indicate it could be, then it's pretty much becoming self-vaccinating. By the time a vaccine is ready (if one ever is) nearly everyone will have had it and have some level of immunity. To the best of my knowledge, there have been no factual cases of someone getting Covid-19 twice. There are some anecdotal claims, but if the virus is as widespread as the Penn State study assumes then many people likely have had multiple exposures to it and we should have some firm cases of reinfection which we don't currently have.
Until the CDC releases antibody test numbers, we won't know what to believe. Our numbers we have now are essentially the worst-case numbers in terms of the death rate. The one solid number we have are the number of dead. There are reports that even those numbers could be inflated as people who died with Covid-19 are being lumped with those who died from Covid-19. And yes, there's a difference.
The numbers right now aren't horrible. The deaths are dropping. More infections are being found as we're doing more testing, but the vast majority of those testing positive are having few if any symptoms. Once infected and the virus is cleared, it appears that people are then immune at least for a bit. It's not the end of the world.
@gardenman
Well, that wouldn't be good enough, being "immune at least for a bit". This idea of "herd immunity" isn't going to happen with a vaccine and no evidence of immunity after infection.
And for those 126,000 Americans (and climbing) dead in less than 4 months? I think that's pretty horrible. And it certainly is the end of the world for them.
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