"80%" -- I doubt the 64% in Austria as well. Even if there are 640,000 cases per million people, after almost three years now, how many of those cases are second, third, or Nth infections in the same person? Some people seem to catch it over and over again, while others seem to have avoided it entirely. The former appear (at least to me) to be mostly the highly vaccinated, while the later are those of us who've avoided injections but take plenty of prophylactic supplements.
Truth be told, with most "cases" being solely the result of a PCR test, contrary to all prior established practice, which defines a case as symptoms CONFIRMED by a diagnostic test, most of the case counts in the west are overstated by as much as 90%.
However, Austria's 64% is the highest "first world" number we have, and it's well below what China is claiming. If Austria is overstated (probable), the China's 80% claim becomes even more improbable.
I've never understood why someone who isn't sick would get tested. OK, there was *some* mandatory testing of healthy people in certain occupations, but it wasn't all that prevalent.
Then again, I'm sure there are plenty of people who were sick and never got tested, or more recently, people who were sick but just did a lateral flow test and are thus reasonably confident they had it, but never reported it to any "authority". I know a few people in the latter camp. Bottom line: I don't think any country has a good handle on what portion of their population has actually been infected.
As for why people chose to get tested, the reasons may vary: some employers may have mandated it (even without government mandates), and others simply succumbed to the fear porn from the corporate media.
What we do have are numbers of tests administered, and the positivity rates (although without the Ct values for PCR tests).
As it turns out, Austria not only has the highest number of COVID cases relative to population size....
Thus one reason Austria reports so many cases is they were hell-bent on looking for the virus.
At this level of testing, while it is possible some cases might have been overlooked, false positives seems a more likely outcome. That would make Austria's 64% infected figure an overstatement--which makes China's 80% even more fantastical.
I think 80 percent of the world has surely been exposed to the novel coronavirus by now. In my family, I think 100 parent of us us has (four people). I could add my mother-in-law, father-in-law, two brothers and that makes it 8-for-8 (100 percent). The variable is different people have been exposed to different variants and so do you count each mutation of the virus as a separate disease or virus?
I think we were close to achieving herd immunity in America in the spring/summer of 2020 ... but then the variants came around. Also, the vaccines have thrown everything out of whack because they seem to make more people more likely to be infected.
Broadly speaking, 100% of humanity is regularly exposed to a coronavirus. There are 7 distinct viral species which can infect humans.
However, China is asserting that 80% of the population has been exposed to the SARS-COV-2 virus during this current outbreak. That is a rate of community spread which is unprecedented.
Moreover, if there was a much larger percentage of Chinese who had been exposed to the virus before now, the reported overwhelming rates of hospitalization and death throughout China should not be happening.
Finally, there is no herd immunity for infectious respiratory pathogens and there never has been. It doesn't exist for influenza virus and it doesn't exist for the SARS-COV-2 virus.
"80%" -- I doubt the 64% in Austria as well. Even if there are 640,000 cases per million people, after almost three years now, how many of those cases are second, third, or Nth infections in the same person? Some people seem to catch it over and over again, while others seem to have avoided it entirely. The former appear (at least to me) to be mostly the highly vaccinated, while the later are those of us who've avoided injections but take plenty of prophylactic supplements.
Truth be told, with most "cases" being solely the result of a PCR test, contrary to all prior established practice, which defines a case as symptoms CONFIRMED by a diagnostic test, most of the case counts in the west are overstated by as much as 90%.
However, Austria's 64% is the highest "first world" number we have, and it's well below what China is claiming. If Austria is overstated (probable), the China's 80% claim becomes even more improbable.
I've never understood why someone who isn't sick would get tested. OK, there was *some* mandatory testing of healthy people in certain occupations, but it wasn't all that prevalent.
Then again, I'm sure there are plenty of people who were sick and never got tested, or more recently, people who were sick but just did a lateral flow test and are thus reasonably confident they had it, but never reported it to any "authority". I know a few people in the latter camp. Bottom line: I don't think any country has a good handle on what portion of their population has actually been infected.
As for why people chose to get tested, the reasons may vary: some employers may have mandated it (even without government mandates), and others simply succumbed to the fear porn from the corporate media.
What we do have are numbers of tests administered, and the positivity rates (although without the Ct values for PCR tests).
As it turns out, Austria not only has the highest number of COVID cases relative to population size....
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_per_million&Metric=Confirmed+cases&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Color+by+test+positivity=false&country=USA~DEU~FRA~AUT
...by a couple orders of magnitude it also has the highest test rate (tests per 1,000 people)
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_per_million&Metric=Tests&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Color+by+test+positivity=false&country=USA~DEU~FRA~AUT
As a result of this emphasis within Austria on testing, Austria also has the highest number of tests per diagnosed case of COVID.
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_per_million&Metric=Tests+per+case&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Color+by+test+positivity=false&country=USA~DEU~FRA~AUT
Which, ironically, gives Austria a relatively low proportion of daily tests that are positive.
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_per_million&Metric=Share+of+positive+tests&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Color+by+test+positivity=false&country=USA~DEU~FRA~AUT
Thus one reason Austria reports so many cases is they were hell-bent on looking for the virus.
At this level of testing, while it is possible some cases might have been overlooked, false positives seems a more likely outcome. That would make Austria's 64% infected figure an overstatement--which makes China's 80% even more fantastical.
that guy in hunan would have been better off with chicken and rice than paxlovid.
to my knowledge there's no hunan chicken rebound
I think 80 percent of the world has surely been exposed to the novel coronavirus by now. In my family, I think 100 parent of us us has (four people). I could add my mother-in-law, father-in-law, two brothers and that makes it 8-for-8 (100 percent). The variable is different people have been exposed to different variants and so do you count each mutation of the virus as a separate disease or virus?
I think we were close to achieving herd immunity in America in the spring/summer of 2020 ... but then the variants came around. Also, the vaccines have thrown everything out of whack because they seem to make more people more likely to be infected.
Broadly speaking, 100% of humanity is regularly exposed to a coronavirus. There are 7 distinct viral species which can infect humans.
However, China is asserting that 80% of the population has been exposed to the SARS-COV-2 virus during this current outbreak. That is a rate of community spread which is unprecedented.
Moreover, if there was a much larger percentage of Chinese who had been exposed to the virus before now, the reported overwhelming rates of hospitalization and death throughout China should not be happening.
Finally, there is no herd immunity for infectious respiratory pathogens and there never has been. It doesn't exist for influenza virus and it doesn't exist for the SARS-COV-2 virus.
I have not had it but I think that is quite rare now.
My wife and I haven't had it either, nor our daughter.
What country are you in?
I am in England.
We're in the USA. We bounce back and forth between Pennsylvania and Florida several times per year.
So not like you have been in a cave somewhere!!
You want to be careful. they might want your blood for "science"