I saw that all CDC study publicized last night and thought it was new... I was disappointed to see it was the same one me and you read about a month ago from May 12th and earlier. I understand they have a complicated job, but rolling out data 79 days after the fact in this environment doesn't cut the mustard. So I tried to figure it out with my feeble mind just to see where we might actually be
I did a little math on it last night,,, just a guess. But on May 12th Johns Hopkins had us down for 1.34 million positive cases and 9.6 million tests, so roughly 14% positivity rate. We know according to the CDC that was 10% of actual cases, so really we would be around 13 million cases. Since then we have had 2.65 million positives and 40 million additional tests. Roughly a 6.5% percent positivity rate.
I doubt the positivity rate is a one for one sort of deal, but I would guess on average if we are getting half the positives than the we should be capturing double the total share of cases. Than we are only missing half the cases? So maybe the current number is 5X (national average.)
I will try to find the link, but I did see a 3 county antibody study from May- June in Western North Carolina of 32,000 blood samples that basically laid out one county was about 7x antibodies vs confirmed cases. Another county was as little as 3x antibodies vs confirmed cases. So I would guess 5X was the number there.
So if we call it 5x since May 12th and 10x before. That gives a total of 26 million total cases nationwide as of yesterday... so 8-10% so far?
The big questions is what is herd immunity really? I have read how the slowdown affected a lot of areas at 20%, but that also came at the end of major lockdowns and warmer weather... In countries that do not spend much time in confined spaces in the summer sucking down recirculated AC. The hardest hit province (our version of a county) in Italy (Bergamo), has 57% antibodies in a test of 10,000 residents. The spread stopped there, but it was after the 2 month full lockdown that ended in May. And again, this is an area without a lot of confined spaces pumping AC during the warmer months.
https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-t...-in-italys-bergamo-have-antibodies/a-53739727
So I am hopeful that herd immunity hits sooner than later, but I don't want to count on it either. With kids in school and cool weather on the way, it could get bad in the fall if people aren't diligent and its still spreading. Because wherever we are now, its nowhere close to 57%.