3 ms·

Yep you're right, your odds are best towards the tail of the pandemic

• bluGill 7y ago
  In most cases, but the 1918 Spanish flu famously got more deadly after a mutation, if you got it early you were better off. I'm still hoping to get it late assuming better treatment (or better yet vaccine), but I recognize there is no way to know if this is correct in this case.
  • TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    The best case with mass immunity is that R drops below 0 and the virus burns itself out. The worst case is that immunity primes the body for a massive and lethal immune system overreaction if the virus returns and/or mutates. This seems to have happened in 1918, which is why the second wave was more deadly. Generally viruses seem to become less lethal over time, so this is rare and unlikely - and we'd be very unlucky indeed if it happened now. But it isn't entirely impossible. The smart thing to do would be to have some high-quality monitoring in place to catch it if it starts happening, with high quality contingency planning for an international response.
    • vsl 7y ago
      Below 1, not 0. Below 0 would mean an infected person on average heals other infected.