gzsg

"We might get a situation where reported cases of Covid in the United States fall very close to zero in Q2 (second quarter) of next year. That six month difference, that two-quarter difference matters a lot, it means an extra 1 to 1.25 percentage point gain in GDP next year," Seth Carpenter, chief U.S. economist at UBS, told CNBC's Joumanna Bercetche on Thursday.

Excargodog

We MIGHT. But we might take a hit by an asteroid that causes global mass extinctions in the second quarter of next year too.

I imagine the odds of either happening are pretty similar...

OOfff

Or we may not, as infections reach daily records

velosnow

That'd be nice, it should once again correlate with fewer cases with the warmer weather. Hopefully only a moderate bump by next fall but by then with vaccines and ever improved treatment sure hope we can put this behind us.

jacinth

All they need to do is lower the PCR threshold. From what I have researched they are using 40 as the current threshold which most have argued against for months as it makes the test way too sensitive. It causes positive cases even with viral fragments which basically means as the virus spreads more will test positive even though they got over it months ago or never even knew they had had it. The consensus that I have seen is that it should be around 30. The New York Times did an article on this a while back and it showed that the amount of positive cases in the Boston area would decrease by 90% by doing this. So, imagine a 90% decrease in cases just by moving the threshold to something more reasonable. That on top of the fact that much of the population will have immunity in it by summertime anyway and I could easily see this mostly over by summer. Of course they will say it’s the vaccine that did it.

TED74

Interesting points.

In any case, it isn't an inappropriate PCR threshold that's filling ICU beds in my state. And as much as I'd like to think that having had COVID establishes meaningful immunity from subsequent infection, I'm not sure there's data to support that notion yet. Of course I hope that will be true!

Speed Select

With accelerating positivity, at some point in the relatively near future we’re either all going to have some level of immunity to CV-19, or we’ll all be dead from CV-19.

As an amateur epidemiologist / professional pilot, I suspect we’ll realize one or the other by Feb/Mar.

With so many people infected, we’re literally at a flash point where avoiding infection is becoming a lot more difficult.

1Taco

Are we not doing random drug testing anymore or something? Judging from his other posts, I would love some of what this guy is smoking.

beernutt

Jerry likes to open the door wide enough to throw a grenade in then close the door and laugh as he listens to the heads popping in the next room.

Viking busdvr

While the above may or may not prove true, the party of fear in this country is not about to give up masks. Selling fear has proved to be too valued a resource to give up. It’s the “new normal!!” Haven’t you heard? Big city mayors can participate in street parties consisting of thousands of people standing shoulder to shoulder one day, and the very next day call for the cancellation of Thanksgiving holiday gatherings of more than 10 people. “Life can’t return to normal until there is a vaccine!!” has been replaced with “We cannot return to normal until there is ZERO deaths from Covid”....
The party of fear and obedience will not let up. I pray I’m wrong...