Are Most Immune?

John Hinderaker, senior contributor at Power Line, has some possible good news concerning the Covid-19 pandemic. Hinderaker quotes work by a Nobel Prize winning chemist - Michael Levitt - who visits China with some frequency, reprinted from the Jerusalem Post.

“The rate of infection of the virus in the Hubei province increased by 30% each day — that is a scary statistic. I am not an influenza expert but I can analyze numbers and that is exponential growth.”

But on February 7, something changed. “The number of new infections started to drop linearly and did not stop,” Levitt said. “A week later, the same happened with the number of the deaths. This dramatic change in the curve marked the median point and enabled better prediction of when the pandemic will end. Based on that, I concluded that the situation in all of China will improve within two weeks. And, indeed, now there are very few new infection cases.”

In Wuhan, where the virus first emerged, the whole population theoretically was at risk of becoming infected, but only 3% were.

The Diamond Princess cruise ship represented the worst-case scenario in terms of disease spread, as the close confines of the ship offered optimal conditions for the virus to be passed among those aboard.

“Those are extremely comfortable conditions for the virus and still, only 20% were infected. It is a lot, but pretty similar to the infection rate of the common flu,” Levitt said. Based on those figures, his conclusion was that most people are simply naturally immune.

What it didn't say, but should have, is that maybe "most people are simply naturally immune" in China. Italy seems to be having a less-favorable experience. I'm thinking their so-called "Mediterranean diet" isn't as healthy as we've been led to believe.