Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by impendia 2062 days ago
Various experts are predicting that the winter will be quite bad. See for example:

https://covid19.healthdata.org/global?view=infections-testin...

https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america?view...

But notice, in the latter chart, that in the US the number of infections is predicted to peak in January and then start going down. It seems plausible that by March, we'll achieve some level of herd immunity, relative to the precautions that are currently being taken. We might have a situation like Europe over this pas summer, with small numbers of cases until a second spike in Fall/Winter 2021. That would buy us the spring and summer to roll out a vaccine.

Of course, I'm far from sure that this is what will happen -- but it certainly seems plausible to me.
2 comments
Jemm 2062 days ago
Those charts are already inaccurate. I wouldn't rely on them.
link
impendia 2062 days ago
Rely on them? I agree, certainly not. But at least they describe a plausible scenario.
link
halfmatthalfcat 2062 days ago
It's been estimated that 80% of the population needs to have been infected to achieve herd immunity. That means ~240 million people in the United States need to be infected. We're at 8.7 million infected. No way we get herd immunity anytime soon.
link
impendia 2062 days ago
Herd immunity is relative.

For example, I'm a professor at the University of South Carolina. Here we've had around 2,500 confirmed Covid cases, and perhaps around 10,000 cases in actuality. Nearly all of them happened in the first few weeks of the semester, and now the positive test rate is extremely low.

Looking around town, it's pretty clear what happened. There are some students that have acted like nothing is happening, partying and drinking constantly. That population has presumably hit herd immunity already. Meanwhile, there are many students (and staff) that are exercising precautions, and not venturing out a lot, and probably few of them have contracted the disease.

Now, we can't just go back to normal, or else cases would spike among this second group -- but locally it seems that we can afford to relax a bit.

And, also, we're at 8.8 million confirmed infected -- the actual numbers are presumably much higher.

link