TiggerBouncy
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2013
More younger people are getting it, so the death rate is lower.. way, way LOWER.......and we are headed to HERD IMMUNITY.
Unfortunately, we are no where near Herd Immunity yet. For clarification, Herd Immunity means that enough of the population is carrying antibodies, that the chance of a contagious individual encountering someone who is not protected is low enough that the number of cases decreases over a short time to near-0.
The United States has 4.8 Million confirmed cases. Out of 328 Million, that's just around 1.3%. If we assume that for every 1 case we know about AS MANY AS 8 or 9 we don't know about were silently sick, that's STILL only 10% - and that's a VERY LIBERAL NUMBER.
COVID-19 has an estimated r0 of between 2-3. At that number, we would have to reach around 67% of the population possessing antibodies to effectively give the virus no where to go (or in other terms reach Herd Immunity where unprotected members of the herd are unlikely to encounter contagious members of the herd).
In other words, the virus would have to get 6-7 times worse than it is today at the BEST estimates before we would achieve herd immunity here in the United States.