IF being the key word here. CZroe said weeks ago that he expected herd immunity (via infections & vaccinations) to come sooner rather than later, and so far there is no let-up in the pace of infections in the U.S. (and other countries around the world). I didn't study the CDC model on how many infections have already occurred, but
I stated my doubts then:
- Testing has scaled up massively since the early days. It's highly dubious to think that testing missed 86% of infections last April, and continues to miss 86% of cases now.
- Every serology survey I've seen on places believed to have the highest rate of infections (i.e. Stockholm and Brazil) has turned up percentages much lower than the ~70% that experts estimate are needed for herd immunity. If the 1M residents of Stockholm aren't close to 70%, there's no way in hell that 330M Americans are either.
I'm not ruling out that as vaccinations pick up significant pace, then new infections will quickly taper off before the end of winter. But right now there's no concrete evidence to believe this is already occurring.
As far as the infection fatality rate, reasonable estimates I've seen are in the 0.5% range or approx. 5 times as deadly as seasonal flu. You can decide for yourself if that rate is very low (certainly it is compared to MERS or Ebola), or if the 3rd leading cause of death in the U.S. for 2020 is overblown as many maintain to this day.
I also said "if:"
My point exactly. The number is significant enough that we will be seeing a significant slowdown by the end of this year when you total community-acquired and vaccine-acquired immunity, even *if* we only have frontline workers and the most vulnerable with a few more vaccinated by then.
Clearly, we didn't get frontline workers and the most vulnerable vaccinated by then while I was expecting them plus more and the cases we are having now (first week of 2021) are the cases from the end of 2020... namely, the ones I was expecting to bring us closer to immunity. As you know, the count lags the actual infections. The bulk of currently active cases in the official count are infections from the end of 2020. Cue the slowdown from infections peaking at the end of 2020, but the high number of active cases at this peak will definitely make the drop/slowdown less steep than it would have been if we got here more slowly and with more vaccine-acquired immunity.
Despite my poor wording ("significant slowdown by the end of 2020"), the expectation was never that we would see the effect of this immunity while everyone was still sick at the beginning of 2021. Of course we would still be detecting those end of 2020 cases in the first week of 2021. The expectation was that it would finally be forced to slow down soon afterwards (early 2021) due to the vaccine rollout and community spread getting us closer to herd immunity. It was based on their promise that we would have tens of millions vaccinated by the end of the year and we didn't even have a fraction of what we were expecting. Obviously, that leaves the door open for even more community spread.
Looks like we are on track for herd immunity "sooner rather than later" despite the vaccine rollout. The fact that there has been no let up in the pace is exactly why. The pace only hastens it. IOW, the pace is what supports what I was saying and continue saying. Herd immunity doesn't just kick in overnight when it reaches a magic number. There is a taper and the high number of current active cases as we approach that number is probably going to skew it higher than it otherwise would be. Still, it absolutely will slow down before it hits a brick wall. Hopefully the vaccine will make it a lot more sudden but at the current rate I fear it's too little, too late. Weeks earlier would've made all the difference.
This is what I was expecting minus the pitiful vaccination rate. It seems to be exactly what I was expecting/predicting for community spread, peaking in the US around the end of 2020 before existing immunity starts to slow it down. Obviously, having 50% of the population immune and some percentage of the remainder gradually acquiring immunity without the virus will inevitably slow the virus down even though it isn't the number needed for herd immunity. There are literally half as many people around for each infected person to infect, which measurably affects the r0.
In the same post I also said...
...The CDC itself is estimating that only 1 in 8 US cases gets reported officially:
Cases, data, and surveillance to track and analyze COVID-19.
www.cdc.gov
Since then their estimate has dropped to one in 7.2 cases, which is what I used to calculate that nearly half the population should have immunity when the current active cases have recovered. That 7.2 estimate was before the holidays so, if anything, our sudden inability to get a timely free test here and the drop in testing during the holidays would likely widen that ratio during this new peak in active cases.
People KEEP focusing on THE WRONG THING. This is going to sound callous but it's NOT the deaths that matter: it's the hospitalizations, both "regular" and ICU.
It's the STUPID amount of people in potential need of hospitalization that have driven countries to enact lockdowns SINCE MARCH (and even earlier, in China's case): they realized that, left unchecked, the hospital system WILL COLLAPSE.
Many countries have opted to have "soft localized lockdowns" after having had a more severe lockdown earlier in the year. How's that working out? Let's ask UK, Germany, to name but a few ...
I've said it before and i'll say it again: it's better to have a HARD lockdown with severe measures that lasts around 1 to 2 months (depending on the number of cases BEFORE starting it), with the economic consequences that carries, than to have "soft localized lockdowns" that work dubiously @ best if @ all, but for a MUCH MORE PROLONGED period of time, which ends up having A BIGGER IMPACT on the economy in the long run.
100% agree. We are peaking right now and the huge numbers of active cases are also putting a lot of vulnerable people at risk which will be flooding into hospitals in the coming weeks. Hospitals are already at capacity. Severe cases lag even further behind the daily new cases so US hospitals are likely going to have a very rough time even just handling the new infections from last week that have yet to develop that far for all of the ones that will end up being severe.
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