It would be good news. If it were true - and keep in mind that if it were true, it would "only" mean 520K total deaths over the next 12-24 months, assuming no cure/vaccine (or interventions) if ~60% become infected (herd immunity level) and only 65% of those have symptoms and 0.4% of those with symptoms dies (so 330MM Americans x 0.6 x 0.65 = 130MM symptomatic Americans x 0.4% fatality rate = 520MM deaths).
Here's the problem with this calculation. It flies completely in the face of the best data we have on total IFR from NY/Spain, which is actually more conservative than the CDC's symptomatic IFR (as it includes both symptomatic and asymptomatic people). We have pretty solid antibody population testing now in NY and Spain, with NY showing 12.3% infected, via antibody testing (which includes all infected, whether symptomatic or asymptomatic) and Spain showing 5.0% infected.
https://rutgers.forums.rivals.com/t...ocial-distancing.191275/page-111#post-4557431
In NY, when the study was done in late April, there were 19K confirmed deaths (not even using the 24.5K confirmed + presumed deaths), so the IFR was 19.5K/2.46MM infected (12.3% of 20MM in NY) or 0.8%; if one includes the presumed dead, which most do (and most think that's still an underestimate based on excess deaths), then the IFR jumps to 24.5K/2.46MM infected or 1.0%. In Spain, as of about 5/15, their antibody population testing showed an infection rate of 5.0%, so their 27K deaths/2.33MM infected (5% of 46.7MM) equals an IFR of 1.16%. On the CDC's basis (excluding 35% of the population), these 1.0-1.2% IFR estimates would be 1.6-1.8% (vs. just symptomatic people), so hard to imagine that number coming down to 0.4% for the US.
Of course, it's possible that areas like these that were hit harder than most other areas and have much higher deaths per capita than everywhere else, have led to a higher percentage of vulnerable people being infected, artificially raising death rates a bit. What we really need to know is the antibody levels in some less impacted states to see if they only have maybe 1-3% infected, as many experts think. This would be about 1/5th to 1/10th the NY infection rate and could explain why so many states have per capita fatality rates that are 1/5th to 1/10th of NYs (NY's is around 1500/1MM and the US, not including NY/NJ has a rate of 200/1MM or 1/7th of NYs). Meaning it's very likely that the reason so many states have lower per capita death rates is that they simply have proportionally lower infection rates, which is not surprising given far less density and regional commuting traffic, especially in NYC metro.
Having said all that, I've been saying in previous posts that the overall final IFR (vs. all infections) would likely be between 0.5-1.0% and if that is multiplied by the 60% of 330MM (which = 198MM) that would get the virus at herd immunity, eventually, that's 1-2MM dead in the US. So yes, 500K would be "great" relatively speaking, but it's likely too low of an estimate.
https://rutgers.forums.rivals.com/t...ocial-distancing.191275/page-111#post-4557369
There is one possible saving grace here (outside of a cure/vaccine) which I mentioned last week based on the evaluation of immunological responses in people that have been tested for antibodies, both those infected previously and uninfected previously. It turns out that 40-60% of uninfected people who do not possess any antibodies do have some CD4+ T-cell activity against this coronavirus, likely due to previous exposure to other coronaviruses, in a phenomenon known as cross-reactivity. If, somehow, some percentage of these people were actually immune to the virus or if it only gave them a very mild case, that would be beyond huge, but it's impossible to know that yet and impossible to rely on.
https://rutgers.forums.rivals.com/t...ocial-distancing.191275/page-116#post-4563258
