Quote
AlbaNY_Ram
The rest of a basic math equation.
That estimate of 80% is in line with Johns Hopkins, who say "Depending how contagious an infection is, usually 70% to 90% of a population needs immunity to achieve herd immunity." [
www.jhsph.edu]
The current US population is 328.2 million people. If 80% of us get infected that would be a little over 262 million people.
With a morbidity rate of .5% we would see over 1.3 million deaths.
That's what trying to attain herd immunity 'naturally' means: let's get on with life even if it means 1.3 million people will die.
And this is even assuming that herd immunity can be achieved simply by infecting 262 million Americans, which hasn't even been determined. We could lose 1.3 million Americans for nothing.
Question. Isn’t the morbidity rate of the annual flu around 0.1%?
That morbidity rate, if 80% were infected, would result in 250,000 deaths annually from the seasonal flu. But the actual average flu morbidity totals are more into the 20,000 to 50,000 range, aren’t they?
Soooo...
Should we conclude that ‘herd immunity’ for seasonal flu occurs well below 70-90% infection rate? OR that one or more other factors of which we are unaware are at play?
And that these ‘other factors’ might come into play with Covid-19?
I know 2 things.
1. The medical ‘experts’ have been moving the Covid-19 morbidity goalposts both up and down for months ranging from 2.2M to 60,000 and back up again.
2. Latest estimates are now up to 120,000, I believe. And that’s counting a ton of deaths as Covid without even testing for it.
Look, we don’t know what we don’t know on this Covid-19 virus. But I’m optimistic that it will run it’s course and be manageable soon. Current trends are encouraging.
