Victor Davis Hanson // National Review
A number of NRO writers have offered today some valuable cautionary data about antibody testing and herd immunity.
Certainly, one cannot yet anticipate what ongoing and planned antibody testing in particular areas might reveal. Perhaps based on anecdotal new reports and a few samplings from abroad, we might expect anything: that from 0-3 percent of the population has been previously infected, to even 15 percent.
I don’t think anyone believes that the results will reveal absolute herd immunity, which can be defined by varying high percentages, according to the infectiousness and viability of particular viruses, is now on the immediate horizon.
At least from their op-eds, interviews, and essays, many researchers who doubt the methodologies of pessimistic modeling believe that antibody testing could both correct flawed assumptions and offer some optimism — quite apart from the unlikely notion that a herd immunity of, say, 60-70 percent already exists, suggesting that the virus is just about kaput, at least for this year.
A modern bad flu peters out often, due to the combination of 30-60 million getting infected, a few million on their own social distancing, another 150-170 million being vaccinated and thus, depending on the quality of the vaccination, perhaps resulting in some of them becoming immune or better equipped to endure the infection, some with existing immunity from dozens of past flu exposures, and with some help from warming weather and more people outdoors.
