skywatch

OK, thinking. I have a virus out there. I have no idea how to measure how many people are exposed to it, other than the rate of confirmed infection in a population - which is wholly dependent on the amount of ACCURATE testing I am doing and probably skews toward more serious infections. I have no control groups and no way to no what potential vs. actual infections from exposures are. Given this reality, in a given population (the US) there is a virus that fewer people are getting now then were before, with more testing now than ever, what is my justification for saying it is MORE contagious now?

rickair7777

Fewer people are getting covid because two populations have already been largely vaccinated:
1) Those at most risk from dying
2) Those at most risk from EXPOSURE

#2 is obviously bound to drive a reduction in INFECTIONS resulting from EXPOSURE.

If a variant is MORE infectious and more severe, that is moot if the person EXPOSED is VACCINATED (vaccines seem to work pretty good against the mutations thus far).

So you can have a more infectious and severe variant circulating without feeling the full impact of that if key populations are vaccinated. I just posted the article, I in no way implied or stated that the sky was falling. I think at this point vaccination will generally stay ahead of these mutations (unless you get one that's really resistant to vaccines, in which case they'll have to modify some vaccines which is fortunately easy to do with mRNA).

GeeWizDriver

There are two more reasons you failed to list as to why fewer people are being infected with Covid:

1. We are rapidly approaching herd immunity because anywhere from 25 million to 125 million US residents have already HAD Covid (depending on which estimate of un-recorded positives you believe) and now have naturally acquired immunity.

2. There is a segment of the population that is naturally immune from this bug to begin with. Again, depending on which estimate you believe, that could be anywhere from 0% from people like Dr. Doom and Knob, to upwards of 25% or more from other, less hysterical experts.

Combine those two facts with the rapidly escalating numbers of the vaccinated (many of whom have not yet hit their full immunity potential - it takes WEEKS) and it is easy to understand why the numbers here are falling rapidly and will continue to do so.

skywatch

OK, you have listed all the reasons why we should be seeing less impacts and why fewer people are getting COVID - and I agree with that, that is really obvious (although I would add that we are also going into spring, and it is normal for respiratory virus infections to subside in the coming months too. So this thing really should be pretty much over soon).

So let me ask the question a different way... I know from your postings you are a smart guy, so this should not be lost on you - how do you know if there is a more infectious and severe variant, if the only observable impact to the population is less infection and less severe outcomes? Just because someone like Fauci or Osterholm says that it could be?

Mesabah

I would just like to point out, that the spread of Covid is so slow that vaccinating healthcare workers was enough to control the virus. Also, we have learned from extensive contact tracing, that public transmission of Covid is statistically insignificant, regardless of any mitigation efforts.

Excargodog

Quite possibly there is a third reason as well - which in fact may be responsible for some of the relative resistance of young people to coronavirus. There are four coronaviruses that routinely circulate in the human population that pretty much just cause colds. If you get one of them you appear relatively resistant for at least nine months to getting other coronaviruses.