UnderCenter

And yet Dallas hospitalizations have been flat for weeks. Still hovering around 70% occupancy.

AntiPeter

A small study which has not been peer reviewed (the process takes time), but the results are interesting. Relying on antibody and active infection tests have probably vastly underestimated the amount of people that have been exposed to the virus. Perhaps the virus has already made it's rounds? It's plausible, especially if the death rate does not increase significantly.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...449v1.full.pdf


"Exposure to SARS-CoV-2 can induce virus-specific T cell responses without 37 seroconversion. T cell responses may be more sensitive indicators of SARS-Co-V-2 exposure than 38 antibodies. Our results indicate that epidemiological data relying only on the detection of SARS-CoV39 2 antibodies may lead to a substantial underestimation of prior exposure to the virus."

rickair7777

A very effective treatment (monoclonal antibodies?) would solve the problem, but it would take longer to change attitudes than a vaccine (from the point of availability). Difference between here's a shot, now you won't get covid vs. if you do get covid we can most likely save your life.

An effective treatment has to be more effective than a vaccine, because an 80-90% effective vaccine will still establish herd immunity.

Ultimtalely either one would work.

If there's no vaccine/treatment (hypothetical not realistic) then the economy is going to hurt real bad for a long time, and who knows how long international travel will suffer.

Downtime

I agree. In your hypothetical scenario I feel like airlines will be the last of the worries in that scenario.

Flyfalcons

They're welcome to set up temporary facilities just like other states did, before closing them down after not sending a single patient to them.

Excargodog

The question is, what is YOUR Plan B? Because you obviously haven’t even started to TRY to refute the premise in the opening statement, that there is no certainty an effective immunization will EVER be developed, and even if one should be developed, that is unlikely to happen quickly and mass immunization programs - even before the rise of the antivax movement, still took decades to accomplish in even a single country and closer to a century worldwide.

That is the point of this whole thread. How long are YOU going to advocate a lockdown, waiting hopefully for an immunization that may be decades off if it ever comes at all. You may believe herd immunity to be a ‘pipe dream’ but it’s always worked before, or else none of us would be here because this is scarcely the first pandemic in history. But an immunization being developed in time to STOP a pandemic? That would be a first. I’m not saying that’s impossible but it seems really improbable based upon the historical record. So how long do you hold true to your theory of lockdown until we get a vaccine, if months and years pass and we DON’T get that vaccine? At what point do you abandon your ‘pipe dream’ that there will be a vaccine ready soon or that even if there was it could be distributed quickly and universally? Because the ‘pipe dream’ of herd immunity is an historical fact. The ‘pipe dream’ of a vaccine terminating a worldwide pandemic has yet to be seen.

contrails12

temporary facilities were setup for non covid patients, because the hospitals were filled with COVID. This is why recovering covid were sent to nursing homes. Trying to free up bed space in hospitals

The morticians were plenty busy

why do we put on reserve fuel. We never burn it??

Excargodog

And that would be consistent with the Penn State findings:

https://news.psu.edu/story/623797/20...ter-originally

The good news is that the death rate ATTRIBUTED to COVID is still going down, despite the fact that we have financially incentivized anyone dying WITH COVID to be counted as a COVID death and even incentivized anyone dying with any of the COVID symptoms (which are in common with those of multitudes of other diseases) to be counted as a COVID death.

contrails12

Ex cargo dog,

On the road to herd immunity, what’s the likely number of COVID deaths?

and what would be the most rapid way to spread the infection to get there? I would guess going mask-less to an indoor rally would work?

Desdi

Mass protests could work too. Funny how most of these states with spikes have been open since early May, but only now cases are spiking in young folks about 2-3 weeks after the majority of the protests, but that doesn’t fit with your worldview I bet, so it must just be a coincidence. In answer to your question 320 million x 70% x .2%.....448,000 should do it, so approx a 16% increase in the normal number of deaths in a year (2,800,000).