04-13-2020, 05:59 PM
I would not be surprised at all if 6 - 10 million Americans have been infected. I think I have mentioned here several times (or maybe it was on CSR) that kids are well known to have a brobdingnagian number of symptom free viral infections. There is no reason to think this virus is so unique that we wouldn't see that.
Pregnant women are unique in their response to infectious disease. They seem impervious to the illnesses that their older kids bring home, but they can get into a lot of trouble with bacterial sepsis. I'm not an Ob- Gyn or an ID specialist, but I've always thought that this is so because their inflammatory response is muted. They catch the viruses but do not show it. Which would certainly make sense in this instance.
When schools are reopened this virus will be widely disseminated. No way around it. In every classroom in America there is a greater than 99% chance that some kid is shedding a virus everyday of the school year. Symptomatic or not. Kids are super spreaders. There is good and bad there. Herd immunity will improve. But many parents and grandparents will get seriously ill on a continuing basis.
Pregnant women are unique in their response to infectious disease. They seem impervious to the illnesses that their older kids bring home, but they can get into a lot of trouble with bacterial sepsis. I'm not an Ob- Gyn or an ID specialist, but I've always thought that this is so because their inflammatory response is muted. They catch the viruses but do not show it. Which would certainly make sense in this instance.
When schools are reopened this virus will be widely disseminated. No way around it. In every classroom in America there is a greater than 99% chance that some kid is shedding a virus everyday of the school year. Symptomatic or not. Kids are super spreaders. There is good and bad there. Herd immunity will improve. But many parents and grandparents will get seriously ill on a continuing basis.