Mmmm You can see the timeline of orders that were put into place and the correlation. Here is Florida https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/state-timeline/new-confirme.... No mask mandate at all. Disney world is open. Beaches are open. The only order was bars are shut down. Without other distancing or masks, it's hard to believe that would stop spread.
I think mask wearing and social distancing is slowing the spread in some places. CA and OH for example have seen a slow when more stringent policies were put into place. But I don't think Louisiana and Florida are being more careful and they are seeing a drop in cases.
I don't think this could explain the huge jump in cases and then decline post-reopening in Fl,Az, and LA. They aren't being more careful now than they were in early June. Disney world is open, people are outright refusing to distance or wear masks, the beaches are packed and yet we are seeing a drop in cases.
Also, States are not uniformly immune. NYC is more immune than the rest of the state so some of the continued daily new cases are in upstate new york and other areas. We need to look at a county level to accurately parse.
Herd immunity is not in reality a single cutoff, it's a spectrum. So there is some point- looking like ~30% where R<1 and cases dip. But the > the %, the more immunity.
The Tech quotes peer reviewed science like the lay press. But they generally do a better job of quoting quality science and conveying the research accurately (as opposed to politically). I think the issue here is speed. Most of the research informing this pandemic is scientist opinion, back of the envelope calculation, and pre-prints. The reason for this is that peer review lives in the world of years and we need information in the world of days to weeks to make good decisions for public health. If we wait for peer review, the pandemic will be over or the conclusions will be obsolete.
It's not good, no. But I am not suggesting that this was a good plan. I am just saying it is the plan that is happening. I think the US government took a really bad route in handling the pandemic. New Zealand had the best model imo- shut down hard and early and eradicated. Hardly any deaths. Were able to reopen in 6 weeks.
Well it's crowd review. Wikipedia itself is actually very accurate for science information. The concept would be the same but for new research instead of well established research. I think this could work well actually. It's basically what happens at scientific meetings.
Eventually we will be able to but cases should drop further. Herd immunity doesn't mean zero spread, it means R<1 and dropping cases that will eventually become close to zero.
Oh sometimes that happens because states make mistakes in reporting and want to correct them. I would guess that's the case here. It also happens in the other direction- big spikes are sometimes a backlog of cases all reported at once.
We are at around 50,000,000 cases. It is looking like herd immunity or at least R<1 is happening at around 30%. There are five states so far that have reached that point- NY, NJ, LA, FL, and AZ. So we have 45 more states to go. As a nation we aren't there yet. I would guess that in a few months we will be given the pace at which this is happening.
Or the initial antibodies drop in people that have had COVID over time (which they probably do). The antibody tests test for the kind of antibodies that are present immediately- over time a previously infected person will have less of those antibodies and more of the back up Tcell kind. You can read a review on this here: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02400-7.
Yeah I had a paper in review at Nature Communications for two years, so yeah. Reviewers can ask for complicated follow up experiments that take time to do.
Yes, and for some reason, NYC and the CDC are not releasing results later than mid April. It is very suspicious imo. They were releasing antibody results and then abruptly stopped without explanation.
But we also don't know what antibody/T-cell levels, which btw testing for Tcells is not widely available or commercial, would = herd immunity. So there is no result that would prove herd immunity.
I have some ideas about why the last released Antibody data from NYC was in mid April. I'm pretty sure it's to do with politics and not science. Herd immunity is a bad look for a politician. But that is pure speculation.
There are parts of NYC with 68% positive antibodies a month ago- so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot more people in NY have been infected than is reported. But not sure I'm following your math from R0 5.6->80%?
Oh I never said anywhere could be safely opened back up- that's a leap. I say quite the opposite- people should be careful and not open schools until cases drop to near zero.
Also, how exactly would you prove herd immunity when we don't know the antibody threshold required? We also don't know that antibodies are the primary mode of immunity- could be T cells. So I'm not sure what kind of analysis you are looking for.