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A comment on Updating Herd Immunity Models for the US: Implications for the Covid-19 Response. Parent comment

Re:Updating Herd Immunity Models for the US: Implications fo... by arrrg on Thursday October 08, 2020 @02:57PM (#24722476)
Deaths are probably more instructive – just to get a ballpark number. If only because deaths are less likely to overlook too many people.

If the IFR is around 1% we would expect around 1,000,000 deaths if one third of Americans have to be infected for herd immunity. So that would suggest the US is 20 percent of the way there.

Given the haphazard way of calculating these numbers I would, however, put huge error bars around some (something like ±15 percentage points at least).

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Re:Updating Herd Immunity Models for the US: Implications fo... by sfblah on Thursday October 08, 2020 @05:54PM (#24724327)
I agree strongly with this type of analysis. The data we're seeing is strongly skewed by all kinds of biases. Looking at deaths at least removes one big piece of bias.

I too suspect areas are achieving some limited herd immunity. I don't think the behavioral changes adopted in the US have done much. Mostly, I just think less social people aren't getting it. More social people are.

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Re:Updating Herd Immunity Models for the US: Implications fo... by nradov on Thursday October 08, 2020 @11:11PM (#24726379)
Our best estimate of IFR is closer to 0.6%.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...

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