5 ms·

Note that's 2% of people who become infected, not 2% of the entire population (unless you're assuming everyone will get infected?). We're trending toward 10-12

Note that's 2% of people who become infected, not 2% of the entire population (unless you're assuming everyone will get infected?). We're trending toward 10-12% of the US population getting infected before vaccines roll out more widely, so that would be somewhere in the realm of 0.25% of the total population potentially suffering long-term effects.

runako 6y ago
CDC is estimating that ~25% of Americans were infected by the end of 2020: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd... And obviously a number of people have been infected since. But just using the 83 million number from the CDC, 2% of that would be 1.6 million people.
- jjcon 6y ago
  Based on seroprevalence which the 98% was not based on so using it now would be misleading
  - runako 6y ago
    They updated that page in late January (2021). I'm not knowledgeable enough to be in a position to argue with their estimates or methodology.
jMyles 6y ago
> We're trending toward 10-12% of the US population getting infected How can you possibly believe this, given the seroprevelance data? Every indication is that more than twice this number (some surveys suggesting substantially more even than that) were already infected a few months ago.
- jjcon 6y ago
  The 98% is not based on seroprevelance data so using it now would be misleading - their stated number should still hold regardless of seroprevelance
  - jMyles 6y ago
    Yeah, fair. 2% seems like a (very generous) upper-bound in this sense.
- vkou 6y ago
  The seroprevelance data claimed that ~10-20% of the population was already infected, back in March of 2020. Given that effectively nobody was dying from COVID prior to March, and the three giant waves of exponential growth that followed, I have severe doubts about the accuracy of these tests. I have a feeling that if those same tests were ran back in 2018, they would have said the same thing.
  - jMyles 6y ago
    > The seroprevelance data claimed that ~10-20% of the population was already infected, back in March of 2020. That's not quite true. The surveys in that time frame were mostly < 10%. The > 10% surveys came months later. However, it's certainly possible that these are false positives (particularly the wastewater studies). However I'm not sure that this particular observation is a good basis for that conclusion. It takes a substantial mass of cases to produce excess population-level mortality, which is what gets our attention. Since we weren't testing for cases prior to March 2020, we really don't know how many people died while infected with the virus. Now of course we count nearly every such case meticulously.
    - vkou 6y ago
      If people were dying en masse from the virus before March, and we just weren't testing for it, those people and their doctors were either following the most amazing quarantine procedures, somehow preventing it's spread through the general population... Or, more likely, they did not have COVID, and just had the flu.
      - jMyles 6y ago
        I don't think I understand what you mean. It's possible that it was fairly widespread, and some people were dying (and perhaps being reported to ILInet, etc), but not enough to cause a notable increase in population-level mortality for anybody to notice. There is ongoing conjecture on this point all over expert circles.
        6y ago

runako 6y ago

CDC is estimating that ~25% of Americans were infected by the end of 2020: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd... And obviously a number of people have been infected since. But just using the 83 million number from the CDC, 2% of that would be 1.6 million people.

jjcon 6y ago
Based on seroprevalence which the 98% was not based on so using it now would be misleading
- runako 6y ago
  They updated that page in late January (2021). I'm not knowledgeable enough to be in a position to argue with their estimates or methodology.

jMyles 6y ago

> We're trending toward 10-12% of the US population getting infected How can you possibly believe this, given the seroprevelance data? Every indication is that more than twice this number (some surveys suggesting substantially more even than that) were already infected a few months ago.

jjcon 6y ago
The 98% is not based on seroprevelance data so using it now would be misleading - their stated number should still hold regardless of seroprevelance
- jMyles 6y ago
  Yeah, fair. 2% seems like a (very generous) upper-bound in this sense.
vkou 6y ago
The seroprevelance data claimed that ~10-20% of the population was already infected, back in March of 2020. Given that effectively nobody was dying from COVID prior to March, and the three giant waves of exponential growth that followed, I have severe doubts about the accuracy of these tests. I have a feeling that if those same tests were ran back in 2018, they would have said the same thing.
- jMyles 6y ago
  > The seroprevelance data claimed that ~10-20% of the population was already infected, back in March of 2020. That's not quite true. The surveys in that time frame were mostly < 10%. The > 10% surveys came months later. However, it's certainly possible that these are false positives (particularly the wastewater studies). However I'm not sure that this particular observation is a good basis for that conclusion. It takes a substantial mass of cases to produce excess population-level mortality, which is what gets our attention. Since we weren't testing for cases prior to March 2020, we really don't know how many people died while infected with the virus. Now of course we count nearly every such case meticulously.
  - vkou 6y ago
    If people were dying en masse from the virus before March, and we just weren't testing for it, those people and their doctors were either following the most amazing quarantine procedures, somehow preventing it's spread through the general population... Or, more likely, they did not have COVID, and just had the flu.
    - jMyles 6y ago
      I don't think I understand what you mean. It's possible that it was fairly widespread, and some people were dying (and perhaps being reported to ILInet, etc), but not enough to cause a notable increase in population-level mortality for anybody to notice. There is ongoing conjecture on this point all over expert circles.
      - 6y ago