We will find out if muscleman herd immunity theory is correct, but I think not. Too many population groups haven’t seen the virus yet. I live in MA ~35 miles out of Boston and no way there is any herd immunity here. Just 10 positive cases in a town of 3300 with no case since May (we have town stats here and testing a availability is pretty good). Other towns around me are similar , but there are also hot spots in between (mostly blue collar communities) with way higher rates too.
I don't want to put words in Muscleman's mouth, but some of us were dreaming that herd immunity might kick in at ~25% of the population with antibodies, but it is pretty clear that was a pipe dream. As of today, there are 8 million officially diagnosed cases in the United States. If you believe the dialysis study, the number of people carrying antibodies is about 10-for-1 of the official cases, or perhaps 80 million. That would be 24 or 25 percent of the US population. Clearly, we are not anywhere close to herd immunity today.
Conventional wisdom is that herd immunity might kick in when ~60% of the population is resistant. So the US might currently be at ~40% of that path? Ignoring the notion that R0 will gradually tail off as people are infected, another ~12m official cases would be required. At ~50k new cases per day that would be 8 more months, but the tailing of the R0 would likely extend that for a great deal longer. So, I will pose the question once more: which will come first in the US, a generally available vaccine, or generalized herd immunity?
The trends in Europe show how quickly this can run out of control. 40k cases today in France is pretty bad. They have started curfews , but this time, they are more targeted towards hoy spots. I think a total lockdown of the economy is unlikely in Europe as it is in the US.
The numbers in France are astounding. I don't pay much attention to the day-to-day counts because there is a great deal of daily noise. But, the 7-day average in France is 20k new cases per day for a population of 67 million people. Multiply by about 5 to get a number comparable to the US population, and it gives you 100k/day, which is even worse than the worst days that the US experienced in July (the worst day for the US was 76k new cases). The Netherlands seems to have an even worse mess on its hands than France.
I expect rising rates and hospitalizations, but hope for the best. Thanksgiving and inevitable travel and family gathering could well ignite another surge. We know from Europe that family events and private meetings/house parties are a major cause of spread and those are hard to control.
I agree fully with your observation about Thanksgiving. In Canada, we celebrated Thanksgiving last Sunday (we celebrate it earlier than in the US) and we will likely see the covid results of the family get-togethers early next week. Our second largest province took the extraordinary measure of prohibiting visitors to houses in almost all of the province. What an extraordinary time it is that a government in a free society would deign to prohibit people from having any visitors at all in their house! But, they did it, and we might see next week whether it made a difference. Let us hope that the impingement on personal freedom at least had a useful public health outcome.
While Thanksgiving is an important holiday in Canada, it is much, much more important in the US...maybe even more important than Christmas. It is the biggest travel day of the year. The first week of December could be interesting....
SJ
