On Wednesday, May 27, 2020 at 1:28:37 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Wed, 27 May 2020 08:07:50 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Wednesday, May 27, 2020 at 12:30:43 AM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tue, 26 May 2020 20:15:19 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Tuesday, May 26, 2020 at 9:47:16 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tue, 26 May 2020 11:06:40 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Monday, May 25, 2020 at 10:51:05 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Mon, 25 May 2020 19:15:45 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Monday, May 25, 2020 at 8:37:44 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Mon, 25 May 2020 18:50:32 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:


You might want to think again.

CDC covid-19 forecast based on about 19 different studies says
we are not out of the woods yet.

Forecasts only indicate a *slowing* of the increase in new cases
through June 15th. No forecasts after that.

Looks like the increase will be in areas/states that have been
minimally affected so far. Hard hit areas will do better.

For example, New York has seen a 17 percent drop in
new cases from May 12h to May 19th.

New Jersey has seen a 19 percent drop as has Pennsylvania.
Massachusetts has seen a 5 percent decrease.


Other states are rising with North Carolina up 41 percent.
Virginia is up 14 percent and Florida is up 12 percent over
the May 12th to 19th period.

Here's an odd statistic:

North Dakota is up 39 percent yet it's border sharing
neighbor of South Dakota is down by 55 percent.

At a certain point we really need to look closer at where these
clusters are. Is this in the general population or is this a packing
plant or something.
If the nursing homes are not locked down by now, that borders on
criminal.

I do expect this to fire back up this winter tho, unless we get a
working vaccine by then. The answer is ultimately a herd immunity of
some kind.

Problem is that the flu virus has been with us for a long time, and there's still no "herd immunity". There is a vaccine that is effective sometimes for some folks.

I think that's all we can hope for here.

I don't remember us ever closing as much as a kissing booth over it
tho. That includes some with comparable per capita deaths. The
difference is totally political.

I agree with the paragraph just above this but you previously wrote, "The answer is ultimately a herd immunity of some kind." That's what I don't believe, and what I was responding to.

Without some cadre of people who are immune to a virus, every
resurgence would be a pandemic. The only thing that sets this apart
from dozens of other viruses is it's novelty. Nobody has any
antibodies to it until they get them right now.
We keep hearing about the Spanish Flu but that is H1N1 and most of us
are immune, either from our flu shot or simply having it before.

I disagree. An effective vaccine would (could) prevent a new pandemic without having to get the virus. And the science isn't settled on there being acquired immunity to COVID. See the link below. Hell, even an effective vaccine doesn't seem to give you immunity or else you wouldn't need a new one every year. At some point you would just be immune to all the strains, right?

As for the Spanish flu, that came back 90 years later slightly mutated into the Swine flu. COVID has already mutated according to some reports. So some folk may get immunity to a virus that is no longer a threat, or the immunity doesn't work on the new one?

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/coronavirus-immunity-complicated-180974970/

Oh, and herd immunity:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/21/health/sweden-herd-immunity-coronavirus-intl/index.html

Interesting that Sweden didn't have more infections (that cured
spontaneously). It does seem to make all of the lock downs look pretty
silly tho when just a modest social distancing can work this well.
I also assume since Sweden doesn't have a big "ethnic" population and
not much in the way of slums, the typical hot spots are not as
prevalent.

A couple of thoughts... as you noted, Sweden has a pretty homogenous population, meaning to say more compliant. What mostly is followed there would be ignored here. Totally different culture.

Also, I was a bit surprised at their death rate. "Sweden has now had 32,172 cases and 3,871 deaths, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University." Unless I missed something, a quick look at some national and international numbers shows they are running at about double or more the average death rate. Wow.

Compared to who? It certainly isn't most of Europe.
OTOH the US is doing much better, particularly if you could carve out
the Acela corridor and 2 counties here, linked with them.
I can see why they are so concerned about it.
I would agree with AOC when she complains that this seems to be
killing poor blacks and hispanics dis proportionately but that may
have to do with the lack of distancing and the general lack of respect
for authority as much as anything.

I was looking at countries that are more or less similar to Sweden. Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Greenland, Finland, Switzerland... those types of countries. They all seem to be at a rate that's half or less than Sweden.

Of course, throw in countries like the UK, Spain, Italy and that's out of the window.