Winnie the Flu Spreads

For John, BLUF:  There is a lot we have yet to learn about the Coronavirus, but what we are learning isn't uplifting, including this information.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Stanford Antibody Studies Indicate No Safe Option for Eradicating COVID-19, Including Lockdown

From PJ Media, by Ms Stacey Lennon, 14 May 2020.

Here is the lede plus three:

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford Medicine recently released his antibody study of the staff of 27 Major League Baseball (MLB) teams from across the nation.  The study is of mostly staff, not players, and covered a broad demographic range.  The results of the MLB study showed that only 0.7% of the staff had the antibodies indicative of having had COVID-19.

Some staff is located in areas where antibody testing has been conducted for the general population such as New York, Los Angeles, and Santa Clara. Most of these locations showed the MLB staff had a much lower rate of prior infection than the general population.  For example, the New York City metro area showed 25% of the population had antibodies.  The MLB staff for the Yankees only showed antibodies in 1.64% of the employees. The Mets tested positive at a rate of 2.61%.

Dr. Bhattacharya said this was indicative of a trend seen in the other studies he has done. Lower-income residents had higher exposure rates to COVID-19.  While the MLB had put mitigation policies in place, he believes that middle-to-upper-income individuals, like most of these staff in this study, have lower exposure.  The ability to work from home and live in areas away from where they work that are less densely populated may be a factor.

The conclusion that Dr. Bhattacharya comes to based on the studies he has done to date is that the epidemic is far from over.  The good news is his studies show about 70% of those who display antibodies were asymptomatic.  This testing also places the death rate at somewhere between 0.1- 0.5%.  This is orders of magnitude lower than originally thought.

So, culture is a factor with the spread of coronavirus, just as Fiction Writer Sarah Hoyt told us, a month ago.  And, it is likely not so much race as it is poverty and the cultural mores associated with poverty.  Don't get distracted by race.  The solutions will require some thought.  Back when LBJ was President we worked to fix things and had some counter-productive results.  We should avoid that this time, if we can.

Hat tip to my Buddy Neal for noticing this and recognizing its significance.

Regards  —  Cliff