COVID-19 cases have dropped 77 percent in 6 weeks. Yet, because the media continues to focus on the slow vaccine rollout and complications related to the vaccination process, few Americans know that, despite these hiccups, the infection rate is plummeting.
It makes one wonder, what’s causing this drop? It can’t all be from vaccines. After all, only 15 percent of the population has gotten vaccinated (and that’s mostly teachers who refuse to leave their homes).
Marty Makary at the Wall Street Journal explains why the number of cases has gone down much faster than experts predicted. He writes:
In large part because natural immunity from prior infection is far more common than can be measured by testing. Testing has been capturing only from 10% to 25% of infections, depending on when during the pandemic someone got the virus. Applying a time-weighted case capture average of 1 in 6.5 to the cumulative 28 million confirmed cases would mean about 55% of Americans have natural immunity.
Due to the media focusing mostly on the horrifying stories of coronavirus infections, we forget that many Americans became infected with COVID-19 yet never showed any symptoms or who had mild symptoms and quickly recovered. That’s not to diminish those who have suffered greatly or who have died, but it’s critical to remember that this disease affects people differently.
Some who have received antibody or serology tests, which look for antibodies in blood to detect past infections, have learned they had the disease at one point, but never knew it.
It’s time to throttle down on the dooms day predictions on coronavirus (and the pushing for double masking and continued lockdowns) and stop promoting the concept that nothing will return to normal until there’s 100 percent vaccination.
Clearly the virus is exiting the scene. That’s something to celebrate. And Americans deserve to hear the good news.