This country in three months?

[Jim Becker]

A local brewery with only a tap room does a "Beer & Hymns" the last Sunday of every month. It is always packed--we go 2-2.5 hours early so that our group (usually 4-10) has a place to sit. Since they're now closed to sit-in service, the musician hosted the event online last night. To help support the business, I got a couple growlers filled there yesterday. I asked the bartender how business was, and he replied that their margins are down due to not serving pints to sit-in customers because they're filling more lower-margin growlers. Overall volume of beer going out the door is up, though. Since my wife and I both have fairly stable jobs for now, we're trying to get take-out occasionally from our favorite local eateries--we want to see them survive this mess.

I noticed that the local craft brew-pub called Mad Princess (which in normal times only has limited hours and just snacks...no food) was open yesterday for take out. That was good to see.

[Robert Engel]

I question if I may have had COVID-19 already and it was diagnosed as Influenza. My rapid test for Influenza came back as negative and they didn't do the longer test for Influenza for some reason. The doctor simply said I had all the signs of Influenza and said the test is not 100%. I had shortness of breath and other symptoms that match up with COVID-19. This was back in January before any doctor would have the slightest thought of anyone having COVID-19 in the USA.

Now, I figure I really did have Influenza as Influenza happens all the time. I'll never know for sure unless they somehow start testing people for exposure to COVID-19.

This is an excellent point. I believe COVID has been here much longer than suspected & this has happened to many people.

Understand the test for Corona is an antigen test, IOW testing for the presence of the virus. Similar to the HIV dilemma years ago, one can test negative today and be positive tomorrow. This is why testing is not done unless you have a fever.

By contrast, a serological test reveals past infection by detecting antibodies in a recovered person. Until that type of epidemiological survey is done, the true extent of the infection will never be known. I suspect it will be vast, on the order of 10's of millions. This type of test will detect those people who had subclinical infections.

Personally, I believe for every confirmed case, there are easily 10-20X as many subclinical/recovered & now immune. This is what they call "herd immunity". Put plainly, as more and more people become immune, and the weakest die off, the epidemic subsides, at least for the time being.

Since most respiratory viruses are seasonal and affected by temperature, at this point there is no reason to believe COVID is any different.

[Wade Lippman]

This is an excellent point. I believe COVID has been here much longer than suspected & this has happened to many people.

Understand the test for Corona is an antigen test, IOW testing for the presence of the virus. Similar to the HIV dilemma years ago, one can test negative today and be positive tomorrow. This is why testing is not done unless you have a fever.

By contrast, a serological test reveals past infection by detecting antibodies in a recovered person. Until that type of epidemiological survey is done, the true extent of the infection will never be known. I suspect it will be vast, on the order of 10's of millions. This type of test will detect those people who had subclinical infections.

Personally, I believe for every confirmed case, there are easily 10-20X as many subclinical/recovered & now immune. This is what they call "herd immunity". Put plainly, as more and more people become immune, and the weakest die off, the epidemic subsides, at least for the time being.

Since most respiratory viruses are seasonal and affected by temperature, at this point there is no reason to believe COVID is any different.

I've always thought the same thing. For it to have spread so quick while infecting so few people would have require it to be simultaneously extremely contagious, and difficult to catch. It seems more likely that there are many cases that were too mild to be reported.

However, counting on it being seasonal might be misguided. It seems to be doing just fine in Australia and Thailand. Time will tell.

Oh, and testing isn't done without a fever because it would be a waste of scarce resources.

[Brian Elfert]

This is an excellent point. I believe COVID has been here much longer than suspected & this has happened to many people.

Understand the test for Corona is an antigen test, IOW testing for the presence of the virus. Similar to the HIV dilemma years ago, one can test negative today and be positive tomorrow. This is why testing is not done unless you have a fever.

I had a really bad fever of 104F when I had whatever I had. I had two ER visits due to severe dehydration one time and severe shortness of breath the other time. I went both times to a hospital with both urgent care and an ER. Triage sent me to the ER side both times. My father thinks I was close to be admitted when I was dehydrated and had 104F fever.

[Curt Harms]

This is an excellent point. I believe COVID has been here much longer than suspected & this has happened to many people.

Understand the test for Corona is an antigen test, IOW testing for the presence of the virus. Similar to the HIV dilemma years ago, one can test negative today and be positive tomorrow. This is why testing is not done unless you have a fever.

By contrast, a serological test reveals past infection by detecting antibodies in a recovered person. Until that type of epidemiological survey is done, the true extent of the infection will never be known. I suspect it will be vast, on the order of 10's of millions. This type of test will detect those people who had subclinical infections.

Personally, I believe for every confirmed case, there are easily 10-20X as many subclinical/recovered & now immune. This is what they call "herd immunity". Put plainly, as more and more people become immune, and the weakest die off, the epidemic subsides, at least for the time being.

Since most respiratory viruses are seasonal and affected by temperature, at this point there is no reason to believe COVID is any different.

A voice of reason in these times? Can't have that. Good post.