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Age 0-34 .01%
Age 35-44 .04%
Age 45-54 .2%
Age 55-64 .7%
Age 65-74 2.4%
Age 75-84 8.9%
Age 85+ 36.8%
By the way, just to put some context around these numbers.
It is commonly believed that a society achieves herd immunity when roughly 80% of the population has become immune. Let's be generous and say for Covid-19 we could achieve that with 50% immunity.
Without a vaccine, that immunity can only come from actual infections. We could probably achieve that if we lifted all restrictions and let people roam freely to infect each other.
The US population is currently about 330M people. With 50% being infected, that would equate to 165M people infected. At a 0.6% IFR (using the actual number from the study you linked), that would result in ~990,000 death. So, we are roughly 20% of the way there. For 80% immunity, we are looking at 1.58M deaths.
We can have a debate about whether 990k (or 1.5M) deaths is acceptable to re-open the economy.
But, it seems to me to be a little more serious than "not a big deal for most people".
Even if you are 85+ you are more likely than not to survive this (if you even get it). 0.6% overall is such a small fraction I’d advocate for a full reopening.
The US population is currently about 330M people. With 50% being infected, that would equate to 165M people infected. At a 0.6% IFR (using the actual number from the study you linked), that would result in ~990,000 death.
That’s a bit dramatic don’t you think. Cases have come down in Florida and Arizona. Deaths are about 1,000 per day. At that rate it will take years to reach 990,000 deaths.
There will be a vaccine probably by Spring. About 50% of the people will take it. Of those, we will be lucky if the vaccine is 70% effective. So, no matter what this will be with us for years regardless.
Even if you are 85+ you are more likely than not to survive this (if you even get it). 0.6% overall is such a small fraction I’d advocate for a full reopening.
Youyang Gu, young data scientist from MIT and creator of what has so far been the best model for Covid projections, estimates IFR now down to about .3% from .6% in May. You can read his work on this subject here: https://covid19-projections.com/esti...ue-infections/
With herd immunity, it's true that full immunity wouldn't be reached until 60-70% of population infected. This number is derived from the estimated R naught of the disease. Higher the R naught, lower the herd immunity threshold.
However, significant reduction in spread apparently occurs when approximately 20% of a population has been infected. At that point, simple social distancing measures seem to be adequate. Witness NYC and Lombardy, Italy for example. Also Mumbai and Delhi in India are almost certainly above that number, along with other locations worldwide. In such places full opening can probably be pulled off with little problem.
Fauci agrees with KohalaTransplant regarding the unacceptable death toll in U.S. if infections are let to run rampant, and he admits it's partly due to our population being in generally poor health with far too much obesity.
Covid is widespread throughout Africa and with the exception of S. Africa it doesn't seem to be making much of an impact. The entire continent has seen less death from it than the state of NY.
Even if you are 85+ you are more likely than not to survive this (if you even get it). 0.6% overall is such a small fraction I’d advocate for a full reopening.
That's not an unreasonable position. Although I would feel better if i knew me and my family would be in 99.9%, or actually in the slightly lower percentage that does not suffer serious illness.
Couple other things to consider.
1) The IFR is probably lower than this currently, as we have developed better treatment options, and know better than to house the infected in nursing homes!
2) If we do let the disease run free the hospitalization rate is likely to overwhelm capabilities in many areas (that was the main reason for the initial lock down). This will likely raise the IFR.
I don't have a good feel for which of those two factors would dominate.
Last edited by KohalaTransplant; 08-15-2020 at 11:44 PM..
That’s a bit dramatic don’t you think. Cases have come down in Florida and Arizona. Deaths are about 1,000 per day. At that rate it will take years to reach 990,000 deaths.
There will be a vaccine probably by Spring. About 50% of the people will take it. Of those, we will be lucky if the vaccine is 70% effective. So, no matter what this will be with us for years regardless.
I was just doing the math based on the results of the study. But, you can't compare what we are seeing to what would happen if we fully opened up.
I keep hearing this in various places: "Look how few deaths we have had, we should open up". This completely ignores the fact that one of the main reasons we have not had more deaths is because we have been locked down.
Could the IFR be lower than the 0.6% reported in the study? I think that is quite likely as we have developed better treatment options, and know to protect vulnerable populations.
But, as i mentioned in another post. Completely opening up will also cause a lot more people that require hospitalization. Many of those are being saved today (resulting in lower IFR numbers), if we overwhelm the medical systems by throwing the doors open, many of those being saved now will likely die.
From the paper: These figures indicate that the population IFR of COVID-19 is currently about 0.6%, roughly ten times more deadly than seasonal flu
Again, I agree with a lot of your points about the trade-offs, desire to open up, media hype, etc.
But, we should try not to distort the data.
Actual covid cases are 10X the number of official cases, so his statistic is correct. It is 0.06%. And as pointed out in other posts, the amount of covid deaths is embarrassingly small when compared to other causes of death in hawaii.
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