CALIFORNIANS MAY HAVE DEVELOPED SOME HERD IMMUNITY TO CORONAVIRUS LAST YEAR, STANFORD TEAM THEORIZES

[ace3csusm]

New York state has half the population of California but has experienced 14 times as many deaths from coronavirus.

Experts are looking into several possibilities as to why California hasn't been hit as hard.

The trend has been particularly surprising, experts say, given the state has a large number of people in poverty and homelessness, and saw a substantial amount of travel to and from China last year.

One theory centers around the idea of herd immunity - the concept that a large percentage of a population has already contracted and become immune to an infection, slowing the rate at which it spreads to others.[link:http://abc7news.com/coronavirus-covid-19-herd-immunity-california/6091220/|

[Claustrum]

1. If this is true, does that mean some of the previously "seasonal flu" deaths

If this is true, does that mean some of the previously "seasonal flu" deaths are actual covid19 deaths?

[jimfields33]

26. I think Florida has as well

We’re well into our close down now and really not seeing a huge influx of deaths.

[Hortensis]

45. Half of FL may be at and above the average annual temperate

at which this coronavirus doesn't doesn't seem to be doing well. Like seasonal lulls when the weather heats up are for some, climates averaging 74.something or above don't seem to be amenable to this virus. That theory comes from examination of lower rates of infection in hot climates around the planet.

Some of very heavily populated southern California falls in that range also. When we lived in inland LA, in a higher, cooler mountain valley behind Glendale, frosts were almost unheard of and temps over 100 common; it's become hotter in the two decades since. Here at the north edge of the central FL climate area, near as I can tell our temps average 70-72 Fahrenheit because the Jet Stream has turned into an old, worn out rubber band that allows brief swings of arctic air down here. But this has been a mild winter.

The Stanford team would be well aware of all this also, of course.

[MR. ELECTABLE]

59. Not warm here in SoCal

Weather in Southern California has been stuck under 70 degrees for the majority of the last month. Here's LA's weather, which has been a little warmer than down in San Diego where I live.

https://weather.com/weather/monthly/l/a4bf563aa6c1d3b3daffff43f51e3d7f765f43968cddc0475b9f340601b8cc26

Besides, I don't think we have seen any concrete data that the virus is affected by outside temperature. At this point it's all just wishful thinking.

[Hortensis]

60. Noted. I don't have an opinion that overrides theories of experts.

[DeminPennswoods]

80. Each day I am thinking increasingly this might be true

We have the same phenomenon in western PA, yes cases and deaths are increasing, but it's not at the level of eastern/SE PA. Back at the end of Feb and early March the flu swept through - and it was nasty - but what if it was actually a mild version of cv19? The symptoms are similar as is the treatment.

[bamagal62]

111. Actually, my daughter is at CMU in Pittsburgh and

Had a really nasty bug in mid-late December. Her cough hung around for weeks. Many of her friends also had a bad flu right before winter break.

[DeminPennswoods]

113. I rarely get whatever is going around at

any particular time some due to genetics and some due to not socializing much. When I do catch something, the worst is over in a day or less. But I got whatever was going around from somewhere. I did the usual cold and flu treatments of aspirin, decongestant, water and orange juice and recovered after 3-4 days, but the cough was something else. Just a heavy, hard dry cough. My core muscles actually hurt from it. Cough lasted about another week or so but much less severe which is when it turned into more of a wet cough. I know 3 or 4 people who described the exact same symptoms. Really makes you wonder.

[Mike 03]

2. Very intriguing

The state had a significant amount of travel to and from China last year - some 8,000 Chinese visitors a day at California's airports. Wuhan, China is considered the origin point of the novel coronavirus. It first came to public attention there in December 2019, but researchers are looking at whether it had been around much earlier than that.

Of course, this idea has been speculated about here for some time.

[JCMach1]

11. Texas as well. As I reported previously I am pretty certain

I had this late Nov./Dec. 2019...

Texas has had a low number of cases relative to size

[TeamPooka]

14. My wife was very sick starting Dec 19th. Cough, fever, worse than she's ever had. and it stayed for

5 weeks until she was truly better.
She had gotten a flu shot earlier in the season too.
Still amazed I didn't get it.

[Demovictory9]

69. something spread around work in december. Cough, sore throat. We all had it. (South Calif)

[TeamPooka]

95. We are in Ventura CA

[KatyMan]

99. Yep. Happened in Houston

In late Jan/early Feb. Lots of people sick with severe cold-like illnesses

[Demsrule86]

115. Well, I just had what you describe and the Doc decided to test me (yes we have tests in Ohio) and I

was negative...I do have strep and the beginning of Pneumonia. I was put on antibiotics and feel much better (who knew one day I would be happy for such a diagnosing) But no one knows if having Covid gives you immunity. There are reports of people being reinfected.

[Frances]

3. This theory makes no sense

There are would have been a huge jump in deaths that did not happen
CA started social distancing as soon as we saw what happened in New aYork and Washington state
If we had had the very first cases we would be in a much worse place now

[LisaL]

4. It doesn't make sense to me either.

Virus wouldn't have stayed in California considering Californians travel all over the country.
It's highly infectious (Ro might be as high as 5.7). If it was widely spread in California, it would have widely spread to other states.

[DeminPennswoods]

82. Maybe it did, in a milder form that was mistaken for flu

nt

[Mariana]

15. I think it's mostly wishful thinking.

People want to believe they've already had it and are immune. It's true there were some nasty flu-like illnesses going around over the winter. Just about everyone I know, family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers, was sick for weeks with something or another. However, not a one of them landed in the hospital with pneumonia of any kind. It clearly was not the same thing as this coronavirus.

[DBoon]

30. Seasonal flu was very bad this year

doesn't mean any connection to Covid-19

[Takket]

18. exactly........

the virus was every bit as contagious then as it is now. that hasn't changed. look how many people are packing hospitals right now even WITH social distancing and stay at home orders. if it was circulating in heavily populated areas with zero containment strategy California's hospitals wuld have been overflowing with patients, and that did not happen until the virus naturally made it way there from China, a which point Newsome instituted the shutdown before anyone else.

[Midnight Writer]

28. Right. Are they saying NYC hasn't had tons of overseas visitors, including from China?

[LizBeth]

47. I read the west coast got the China strain and NY got the European strain.

They had the traffic coming from Europe and the strain is just that different. Look at what Italy went thru. There was no blocking travel from Europe.

[Blue_true]

70. I read that same article.

New York and much of the East Coast has a European strain of the virus that has mutated several times. California and the West Coast have a Chinese strain of the virus. A few places in the interior may have both the European and Chinese strain of the virus, that may explain why Illinois and Michigan look somewhere between New York City and the Seattle region.

After five Bay Area counties basically shut down before they even got one case of the virus, and Newsome had California do the same two-three weeks after, California likely benefitted from fast decisive action by governments.

One state that really interests me is Oregon. It doesn't have a big outbreak of the virus, even though there is plenty of regular traffic between the Seattle and Portland areas. Why doesn't Oregon look like Washington State?

[ZZenith]

86. Because we're better people.

I kid! I kid!

I think it’s simply that we’re not as international a place as Seattle. And we’re all pretty good at staying in and ignoring our neighbors.

[Blue_true]

88. When I have done business in that region, there is a lot of traffic between

Seattle and Portland daily. So, one would guess that transfer of the virus would be enhanced by that.

[ZZenith]

91. First week of March this place was like a ghost town.

I think most Oregonians took this thing seriously and hunkered down early. Only explanation I got.

[Blue_true]

93. Well, Oregonians were smart, because it looks like the death angel is largely passing them by. nt

[ZZenith]

94. We vote by mail, too. And we have no sales tax. Some things we get right. n/t

[FM123]

102. No, it doesn't make sense, to me or this doctor...

https://abc7news.com/health/coronavirus-herd-immunity-in-california-doctor-shares-his-thoughts/6093881/

[Dem2]

120. Thanks for sharing that

Seems unlikely they have herd immunity in CA.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

5. Interesting

Following this.

[FiveGoodMen]

6. This seems to suppose

that when the virus arrived (earlier than anyone has previously suspected) it spread but DID NOT cause the instant wave of death that it has elsewhere.

And they would NOT have had immunity at that time.

[LisaL]

8. Herd immunity is only achieved after large proportion of the population gets infected.

California has huge population, and if a large proportion of it was infected, I think somebody would have noticed if people were dying left and right.

[pnwmom]

96. Right. And if a large number of CA people were infected, they would have spread it elsewhere, too. n

[backscatter712]

13. I can think of a possibility or two.

I'm guessing there may be some close-cousins to CoViD-19 which may impart partial immunity - remember that some common-cold viruses are also in the coronavirus family. Those bugs may have spread around and been written off as just a bad cold or a nasty flu or the blortch that goes around in schools or geek conventions.

Or maybe Captain Trumps is a mutation of a more benign coronavirus.

Sort of like how people discovered that milkmaids that got cowpox didn't get smallpox.

[stopbush]

20. Could be. I heard that the COVID-19 has already mutated twice.

A milder strain may well have hit CA last year.

[marlakay]

22. If that was mild wow!

I was sicker than anything with all the symptoms for 5 weeks in December. I would love a test to see in the future if I have any antibodies.

[ace3csusm]

25. you should

I have a friend with the same time frame, he has reached out to his doctor about it, they are reviewing now

[greenjar_01]

38. There are 5 weeks in December?

[marlakay]

66. Lol caught at Thanksgiving in CA

And had till beginning of second week in Jan. Had a few days in December I thought I was better then bam back in bed for 5 days. Fever, cough, choking, chest hurt, etc And I had 4 way flu shot.

[Cosmocat]

64. I saw somewhere where there are variations on those two strains even

The disparate way it has acted in different places in terms of how it releases the kraken like Legionaires Disease here or there and does not in other places ...

[FiveGoodMen]

33. Yeah, those might be possibilities

But I didn't notice that being mentioned in the article.

[Alex4Martinez]

77. I had a mysterious but mile case of some kind of upper respiratory dread in January and into Feb.

And a lot of in-state travel, but near the Silicon Valley and people who do travel to Asia.

[Tanuki]

7. I have been wondering if heavy reliance on mass transit in NY,

where many people don't own cars and must ride packed subway or commuter train cars full of potential carriers, has played a major roll in their high incidence.

[LisaL]

9. Other possibility covid doesn't like California climate, and that's why it spread less there.

[Frances]

43. CA has a dry climate

And the coronavirus spreads faster in a dry climate than a humid climate
I don’t think CA has herd immunity
I think the herd immunity theory is just a way to take credit away from Gov Newsome for his social distancing orders
Boris Johnson in England is an excellent example of a victim of this theory as are the people of Sweden
I’m in CA and I’m doing what Newsome recommends

[Merlot]

83. I tend to agree with you

It would be interesting to see how many Californians have antibodies, I hope we have massive testing in place before opening up again. If a lot of us have the antibodies, that could bode well for the rest of the country.

[tanyev]

12. I wondered about that, too.

Sure, a lot of people use public transportation in California, but the numbers must be a fraction of regular NYC usage.

[greenjar_01]

39. BART and SF busses are heavily used

We'd see much higher incidence in Bay Area.

[Retrograde]

10. Or started taking precautions earlier?

My totally non-scientific, anecdotal and observational support: senior centers were cutting back on services and accessibility here a few weeks before the official Bay Area shutdown, some community events were postponed, some people who had recently been to China or in contact with someone who was were starting to self-quarantine. I had surgery in early March and at every one of the pre-op visits I was asked about travel out of the area (and some of them were switched to phone or video consults). Again, strictly based on my own observations.

Plus, we're not as densely populated as New York City. Or maybe we're just lucky.

[DBoon]

31. Yes, I noticed events being cancelled 2 weesk bnefore official shutdown

[Mariana]

56. No one was taking precautions last year.

The hypothesis is that this was going around before anyone knew it existed.

Stanford researchers are looking into the possibility that coronavirus first hit California undetected last year, much earlier than anyone realized, and was only seen at that time as a particularly nasty and early flu season.

[denbot]

63. Bingo, I think density is a key factor.

NY, and SF, are high population density cities that heavily use mass transit. Los Angeles is mostly a conglomeration of suburbs that have a relatively poor hodge-podge of mass transit systems.

[AnotherMother4Peace]

16. Californians are immune, Blacks are immune - sounds like someone is trying to kill us.

As Californians, my family has been sheltering in place since 3/12/20 - the day after Rachel Maddow was pulling the fire alarm and showing lung ct's of covid-19. In the next couple of days the whole state was issued shelter in place orders - Thank you Governor Newson.

Rachel Maddow pulled the fire alarm at the same time Trump was calling it a hoax. She scared the crap out of me, and possibly saved our lives.

Sheltering in place works - and many CA cities are opening convention centers etc. for people in need.

Last year both my husband and I got the flu despite getting flu shots, and it kicked our butts. That flu did not give us respiratory distress.

[stopbush]

17. The COL is extremely high in CA. Many of us can barely meet the monthly rent.

We’re isolated in cars much of the time. And while we can't afford a family day at Disneyland, we can afford a decent wide-screen TV, which facilitates sitting at home, rather than going out.

[MineralMan]

19. Interesting.

Unfortunately, without widespread antibody testing, it's going to be hard to pin down.

[MineralMan]

21. Here's a post I wrote earlier this year:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213114590

I've been wondering about that for some time.

[ace3csusm]

29. You have me think now

Has strain mutated, did NY in March get a stronger strain that was able to get strong with cold weather, close proximity of residents and all that public transportation?

[MineralMan]

32. No way to know, really, without antibody testing.

I'd be very interested to see if I have any antibodies that might protect me from the COVID-19 strain of coronavirus.

By the time such testing is widespread, though, it will be too late to tie it to the weird chest cold my wife and I had last October.

What I do remember is that we both thought, "This is the weirdest cold I've ever had." Fever, dry cough, and no upper respiratory symptoms at all. The cough hung on for weeks, too, but finally went away.

The thought occurred to me as soon as the symptoms of COVID-19 started being publicized.

But, there's no way to know. I'm going to be have as though there's no connection, though, and keep following the distancing guidelines for quite some time to come.

[ace3csusm]

37. I'm with you

It would be nice to know the stress level would really drop down, I was in close contact with friend we coach together so my entire family went down shortly after with fevers coughs , etc they rarely miss school but this time around they out for days...I somehow missed completely wife only had mild symptoms...

[chia]

58. There is a way to know perhaps, if we can all eventually get tested for antibodies?

[LizBeth]

48. I read west coast got China strain and NY got Europe strain.

[ace3csusm]

55. that's would make sense

It does seem European strain seem deadlier, only factor is if China really reported right numbers...

[Igel]

49. There are dozens of mutations.

But the only suggestion that there's a mutation that made a different was an article out of China that said there were two variants, dubbed S and L.

One was more virulent, and it's the one that affected Wuhan in January. In February, the less virulent strain took over.

There were some good take-downs in which it was shown that they identified the two strains, looked for something that was different, and when they found it said that that was the mutation that accounted for the change. No reason for it except that it had to be there. They assumed the conclusion and then used their conclusion to confirm their assumption.

Problem was that there's no evidence that mutation actually made any difference in virulence. There's little evidence that the proportion of the two strains in the population changed. Much less right at that point in time.

But there was a real reason for finding that excuse: Gung-ho China, virus killer, either botched January through inaction and cover-up OR it was faced with a mighty warrior that even it couldn't vanquish. Either it screwed up or it was victim. And the researchers who published that provided China with its excuse. It didn't have just any foe, but a foe that none could have met head on with such little warning.

[LiberalFighter]

23. Yet they are not sure if people can be reinfected or if they didn't recover fully.

[ace3csusm]

24. California resident here

I have a friend who was sick for like 5 weeks had multiple doctors visits and they all said he has a virus but could not identify it, his entire family also got it, he is not trying to get tested to see if he had it already he works in Los Angels, he was home for a week...me and family have been around them during that time and our kids go to same school, daughter was out sick for 3 days plus weekend, but did not get as sick as him back in November time frame...

[kimbutgar]

27. I was sick back in mid January

It started on a Wednesday and I came home work Thursday and never got out of bed or ate until Saturday afternoon. Even getting out of bed was a challenge. I drank a lot of water and my chest hurt really bad with a dry cough and I had an intense headache. If I stayed still I didn’t cough. I actually posted about it here on DU. My husband got sick himself and for four days he was also weak, never went to the doctor though.

In Retrospect I think we both had it here in San Francisco.

[muriel_volestrangler]

34. WARNING: The Stanford "team" "theorizing" is an ancient military historian, Victor Davis Hanson

There is a genuine team from Stanford that is doing antibody tests. But the only person from Stanford that has this "it came to California last fall" belief is Victor Davis Hanson, a conservative columnist for National Review, and an expert in ancient Greek and Roman military history.

A gullible reporter fell for his bullshit and interviewed him. So this morphed from a story in the Stanford Daily which didn't mention Davis Hanson at all, or any belief of immunity developed last year: https://www.stanforddaily.com/2020/04/04/stanford-researchers-test-3200-people-for-covid-19-antibodies/ , to a story that went viral, and then was withdrawn by the more responsible media outlets that picked it up, eg sfgate.com: https://web.archive.org/web/20200408180013/https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Study-investigates-if-COVID-19-came-to-Calif-in-15187085.php , but now giving "page not found": https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Study-investigates-if-COVID-19-came-to-Calif-in-15187085.php

[greenjar_01]

40. ROFL....That wacko?

Good Lord.

The whole thing is thoroughly discredited on that basis alone.

[muriel_volestrangler]

42. Yeah; a reporter, and several editors, should have known better.

It's like asking the History Channel's Ancient Aliens guy for his take on global warming.

[underpants]

51. Good catch

how the hell is he at Stanford?

[muriel_volestrangler]

53. To give him his due, I think he is a genuine classics scholar

It's just he's also an insufferable conservative idiot, who impresses other conservative idiots because he uses big words, and can explain everything in terms of The Glory of Rome/The Brave Spartans/The Decadent Athenians or whatever, which are the favourite fantasies for a lot of right wingers.

[SidDithers]

35. The only way that makes sense is if there was a strain of something else...

that provides some level of co-immunity to COVID-19.

If the actual COVID-19 virus had been present in CA, and no social distancing or enhanced preventative measure had been taken, then COVID would have spread unchecked across the US.

Sid

[LizBeth]

50. Right. My whole front desk got wiped out first week in January, and after consideration,

there is not the death and there is not the weeks of healing. Though it was tough and purely in the lungs and fever, we were down a week not 5. And people didn't go to hospital. We did have a tech team who was in our work space that had visited China in December. I had a conversation with one of the men, and joked about being virus free.

[msongs]

36. CA does not have the population density found in NYC nt

[lettucebe]

41. Nope. If the coronavirus had been there, we'd have had deaths

The virus didn't suddenly become deadlier. I'd say it has more to do with shelter-in-place or stay-at-home or whatever it is called being ordered sooner.

[Frances]

44. Agree

People in my CA town of 12,000 are social distancing and I am grateful

[marlakay]

67. Unless people did die but they thought

It was the flu. They need to test.

[Mariana]

75. The doctors in China realized very quickly

that this coronavirus infection was a new thing they hadn't seen before. They didn't confuse it with the flu. I think our doctors would have noticed if something this unusual was was killing a bunch of people in the US last year. Remember how quickly they picked up on the illness caused by bad vaping fluid? They were raising the alarm about that when there were only a handful of cases, and before anyone died from it. I just don't believe they would have completely missed a widespread Covid-19 epidemic.

[defacto7]

46. The data, stats and science do not support herd immunity in the way we usually perceive it.

It's not like the fucking flu! Everyone please read the real science not twisted media tripe.

Read about Viral Load. The load necessary for infection is way lower than other respiratory illnesses. The amount necessary for possible immunity is so small it takes every effort to eliminate it from our environment to approach that amount without achieving an amount that's over the top. Outside of that and you have the results of every other country that has embraced herd immunity, Death.

[Squinch]

57. Like Ricky says, "'Splain that to me Lucy." Are you saying that the exposure to get

an immunity without having the illness would have to be so small that it is approaching impossible?

And any effort to achieve immunities that way would almost certainly backfire and kill lots of people?

It makes sense, but I just want to make sure I am reading it correctly.

[DeminPennswoods]

84. Are you sure that's true?

nt

[defacto7]

114. Nothing is sure especially with this new pathogen. But this is the scientific observation at this

point and that's what we have to go on. Our biggest problem is staying on point. The media tries to interpret what they don't know how to read, sometimes it's for exposure sometimes it's ignorance. Even our government puts out half truths or just obfuscates the data. All I can say is read what the noted experts from reputable institutions are saying not media sites that interpret 2nd 3rd 4th hand info to gain gullible listeners. ABC4? The observations do change and new data emerges but don't let the media, obscure sites or unknown people who tout their own dubious credentials convince.

[DeminPennswoods]

117. I don't think there is much data at all on the "load" of

virus required to cause severe symptoms. Anecdotal evidence is that there are more infections of front line medical and emergency personnel and support staff who are now regularly being exposed to cv19 infected people.

If you have a cite, I'd be happy to read it.

[defacto7]

118. Thanks for your cordial reply.

Is there anything out there that's not anecdotal concerning this disease? Even short studies are anecdotal, there's no time for peer review blind studies where human lives are concerned. Most of what we have is from observation and educated guesses. The "studies" most are being exposed to from the media are hypothesis. Someone gets an idea based on their observations with an argument to show why it's a worthwhile study and what they think the outcome will be after proper examination. The news runs off with it as if it's a done deal. That's far from the fact and similar to what we heard early on from the financial sites repeating that the death rate is only .68 so don't worry, the markets will be stable because it's only the flu. In the latter I'm convinced it was to pacify the masses. The real damage is done when the public reads it within the confines of their nature to make it into what they want it to be. It's magnified when the media writes it into what the public wants to hear.
So what do you think the general public will take from hearing the idea that herd immunity might be a possibility? Do you think they will know it's not something to act upon? Do you think they will know that viral load is a chief concern from other observations? No, they'll run out the door hoping for freedom bestowed on them from some misunderstanding of herd immunity. When up against a wall the uninformed/misinformed will reach for a quick and sometimes ideological answer. In that lies an ugly outcome when the probabilities hit the fan.
No, I didn't directly answer your request because it's irrelevant to the point. Information is available, what matters is who is offering and for what purpose. It's too early for any air tight answers. We have to follow what is most protective for all or we'll simply repeat history.

[DeminPennswoods]

119. The observable evidence points to population density

Last edited Sun Apr 12, 2020, 07:14 AM - Edit history (1)

and consistent exposure to cv19 as the most likely causes of severe symptoms. You need only look at the hot spots like NYC, hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, jails and other places where people are in close quarters. This leads me (not a scientist) to think that the load or dose of the virus needed to cause severe symptoms is high, that you do not necessarily get sick or very sick from casual contact with the virus. If the load or dose needed was low, then given the number of confirmed cases, there would be many, many more hospitalizations and deaths.

FTR, I don't believe the "herd immunity" theory for CA, but I think it's entirely possible cv19 has been circulating in the US for longer than anyone thinks. Neither zoonotic diseases nor coronavirus carrying fauna are limited to China. Since most of the cv19 symptoms are the same as for flu, we cannot rule out that some cv19 cases were considered flu or some other respiratory disease during the winter flu season. The common cold is a coronavirus. Isn't it possible some people have at least some immunity based on exposure to colds over a lifetime?

[defacto7]

121. Yes, I think immunity happens and it happens with or without our noticing.

The big question is how much exposure is enough to gain immunity yet below a threshold of illness. Certainly the jury is still out. One issue that makes for a difficult judgement is that there is at least one mutation of this virus that is known; one more lethal than the other. The individual factors to consider are so numerous it makes fine points over a general population almost irrelevant which leaves us with generalizations that are the best we can do. Trends mean something where specifics can lead into the woods. Trends point to the threshold of illness being pretty low, very low. I'd rather err toward the trend then toward lower probability specifics even though that's not as entertaining.

Keep thinking and thanks for helping me do the same.

[DeminPennswoods]

122. This is a good read

link: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/06/how-does-the-coronavirus-behave-inside-a-patient.

Author believes in looking at both the trees and the forest.

[defacto7]

123. It seems that page has been removed

but here's one I read this morning in NYT:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/opinion/coronavirus-immunity.html

[DeminPennswoods]

124. Looks like the New Yorker has consolidated the

conronavirus coverage in one place. The article is now here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/coronavirus-chronicles

[Azathoth]

52. I don't think people realize just how dense the NYC metropolitan area is

Not just the five boroughs, but the surrounding NY and NJ counties that spill into them.

Imagine taking all of Los Angeles *County* and compressing it down to a space roughly 8%-10% the size.

It's like Disneyworld for a pathogen like this.

[LizBeth]

54. This. I was talking about it last week and density was what we came up with.

[chia]

61. I sure didn't, until I read there around 20 million people in the NY metro area. Here in CA,

a lot of the population lives like I do, in the suburbs, and commute in their own vehicles. There's a lot of population, but a lot of room to spread out. It would be interesting to see the results of studies down the road that take our state to state differences and compare them.

[Azathoth]

68. Over 10 million of those are just the five boroughs of the city itself and the bordering communities

which are effectively part of the city anyway. It's the entirety of LA County squeezed into one tenth the size, with Manhattan and Brooklyn alone having as many people as the whole city of LA. In many areas, you can't leave your residence for a pack of gum without coming within six feet of dozens of people.

And the situation gets worse because the outer metro area population crams itself into the business areas like Manhattan and Jersey City during workdays. Manhattan surges from 1.5 million to over 3 million every weekday.

Add to that the fact that NYC is one of the chief points of entry for many, many international travelers, and it's honestly amazing the numbers there aren't higher.

[chia]

92. Incredible, thank you for that information. Stay safe!

[Ms. Toad]

62. Well . . . look at Ohio's projected curve next to the CA curve.

They are virtually identical. It is unlikely that we have herd immunity - since there is virtually no travel from China (or from other places where it might have been seeded and running rampant earlier).

What we did, like CA, is early social distancing.

[Backseat Driver]

65. No "herd immunity" in CA

NYC got the European strain that has decimated Italy and Spain. In addition, I believe that more NYC dwellers have vitamin deficiencies, especially Vit. C and D from natural sunshine in an especially immune-compromising environment. The dense population lives and works under artificial lighting and in gerry-rigged yet engineered HVAC systems in older existing buildings where maintenance might be lacking. In addition, they travel throughout the city by public transit, subway systems, and hired cabs.

NY was quick, and IMHO, too quick, to embrace using ventilators, but I've read that this bug actually gets into the blood where it attacks red blood cells and disables hemoglobin-rich iron stores required for functional air exchange, hence the fatique of anemia, shortness of breath, and the hypoxic symptomotology not to mention dehydration and the very high fevers that tax persons with cardiovascular disease, liver disease, and kidney problems, as well as those already prone to hypertension in which the virus actually is bringing dysfunction inside the cells responsible for oxygen exchange so forcing ventilation really doesn't help in healing but itself causes more damage to delicate exchange cells/tissues. This is therefore, not so related to the cell receptors, but what comes next when inflammation and edema set in to the breathing apparatus. I know I'll hear about this from traditionally trained doctors touting the hypochoroquine (the malaria-parasite/lupus/autoimmune Placquenil drug in which Trump family is invested), while those in the orthomolecular and naturopathically trained have succeeded in faster recoveries from off-beat therapies including IVC (Andrew Saul, PhD) and ozone (R. Rowen, MD) if treated early in catching before viral load increases to kill the host by dismantling oxygen exchange. Their recommendations, BTW, have been widely censored by their platform overseers. I was especially disappointed to see some of the dietary/nutritional healers jump off the deep end politically. Could never understand the rantings of Mike Adams, and now Sayr Ji of GreenMedInfo seems to have joined those fearing political retribution for not going along with mainstream messaging.

What a mess of unfortunate suffering and deaths! What an economic catastrophe for so many that didn't have to be when government was really invested in advancing our citizens welfare on all fronts. I'm sure hoping that once we've all stayed-home and/or use our own PPEs when we do need to shop to lower the curve on hospital caregivers, they will have the breathing room (no pun intended) and lower "curve" to really practice the ART and SCIENCE of what medicine at the front lines used to be in which bigPharma can no longer put profits before patients! Good things may come from this pandemic yet--a BLUE POTUS, for one! What a heavy burden to repair and steer into healing, Joe.

[ananda]

71. Hmmmmm

A year and a half ago in November I had the cold from hell.
I never had a cold that lasted that long; it attacked my throat,
made me cough (particularly at night), and it took three full
weeks before I felt somewhat normal again. It took my
throat a good two or three months to recover.

Then, at the end of February I had a bizarre experience while
I was playing in a bridge tournament at a hotel in Houston.

In the middle of the night I started having serious symptoms
of something; coughing and blowing my nose up a storm for
hours. The next morning I went to CVS and got some
Claritin-D. I couldn't tell if it was an allergy or a cold until
I started felling sick like it was a cold. But then the next day
it was gone.

That was the strangest experience I ever had. In my lifetime,
allergic reactions have never made me sick or react that
strongly; but there's always a first time I guess.

I'm thinking of it as a temporary allergy, to play it safe, so
I will shelter in place as long as it takes.

But it was strange.

[womanofthehills]

79. They could have recently sprayed your room with something toxic - like pesticides.

Years ago , on a plane from Mexico to NM,I had a sneezing attack that lasted the entire plane ride.

[ecstatic]

72. Yesterday I was wondering if we're already on the 2nd or 3rd wave

There seems to be evidence that the virus was already in large circulation for quite some time, starting last year.

[former9thward]

73. The theory makes zero sense.

Californians travel all over the country and people from all over travel to CA. The infection would have been everywhere not just in CA. How come there were not mass deaths before heard immunity was reached? This is beyond silly.

[SiliconValley_Dem]

74. Sounds like a distinctly suspect theory

Easily tested once a valid blood test is developed to see who has antibodies which fight coronavirus.

[LaurenOlimina]

76. I'm thinking it has sprread very much farther than we think

[tenderfoot]

78. This is right wing bullshit

I keep seeing an article that says that COVID-19 has been circulating in California since the fall. (I’ll post the link the comments because I don’t want people to see the headline unless they’ve read my post.) The implication is that Californians have already achieved herd immunity and that that’s the reason we aren’t being hit hard by the virus now. I was interested in reading more, so I googled it.

It turns out that this hypothesis has been promoted by the Rush Limbaugh show. It’s all about trying to avoid giving due credit to the Democratic leaders in California for successfully managing the crisis. Limbaugh had a guy named Victor Davis Hanson on his show last week. Victor Davis Hanson is a military historian and fellow at the Hoover Institution, a right-wing thinktank located at Stanford University. He is also a great admirer of Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump and has a history of expressing the sorts of views you would expect from someone like that. This guy has no sort of expertise relating to public health that I can discern.

After Limbaugh’s show, a reporter from a TV station in Salinas, California put together a news story based on it. She talks about a study being conducted by researchers at Stanford Medicine to test to people in California for antibodies to the virus. She quotes from this Hanson guy extensively and creates the impression that he is involved in the study. She also states that the study will look at whether the virus has been circulating in California since the fall. That’s not what the study is looking at. As far as I can tell, there is no scientist that thinks this might be true.

The story was reprinted by SF Gate, which is associated with the San Francisco Chronicle. This creates the impression that it's coming from a reputable source. (Both SF Gate and the Salinas TV station are owned by Hearst Communications.) On today’s show, Limbaugh cited the San Francisco Chronicle as the source to validate his theory.

I sent emails to both SF Gate and the TV station. The reporter who wrote the story wrote back. She is apparently oblivious to why Hanson isn’t an expert source on this issue. I’m not feeling hopeful that the article will be corrected.

In the meantime, more and more people are sharing this article, and the idea is taking hold in people’s minds. I am making this post public so that you can share it with whoever you need to in order to combat this false news story.

ETA: SF Gate has removed the article. Victory! You can still read the original on KSBW's website.

ETA2: Unfortunately, versions of this story keep popping up. Several ABC affiliates in California have run it, with Hanson as their source. Fighting this is a game a whack-a-mole!

ETA3: Here is a timeline with sources.

March 31 - Victor Davis Hanson publishes an article in the National Review proposing the idea of herd immunity in California, and Rush Limbaugh discusses it on his show.
https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/…/why-isnt-california-ground-…/
https://www.nationalreview.com/…/coronavirus-pandemic-cali…/

April 2 - Hanson goes on Fox to discuss his idea.
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6146745552001#sp=show-clips

April 3 - Limbaugh discusses Hanson's idea, playing lengthy clips from Hanson's appearance on Fox.
https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/…/victor-davis-hanson-on-coro…/

April 8 - KSBW runs a story on Hanson's idea and erroneously ties it to the study on the presence of antibodies by Stanford Medicine. SF Gate runs the KSBW story.
https://www.ksbw.com/…/new-study-investigates-cali…/32073873

April 9 - Limbaugh again discusses Hanson's idea, this time citing the SF Chronicle as his source. He wrongly states that Stanford Medicine is researching the idea. SF Gate takes down the story, and several ABC affiliates in California run their version of the story, which is virtually the same as the KSBW story.
https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/…/stanford-researchers-lookin…/

https://www.facebook.com/laurapowell/posts/10163485164170121

[Quixote1818]

81. Agree. If it had been in CA months ago the entire country would have had to in days too.

Complete BS.

[muriel_volestrangler]

85. Stanford: "Our research does not suggest that the virus was here that early"

A real reporter at Slate has noticed the misinformation from Victor Davis Hanson, followed up with the university, and got this:

No, You Did Not Get COVID-19 in the Fall of 2019

...
Let’s start with the facts. I reached out to Stanford Medicine to try to understand the goals of its antibody test, and how it relates to Hanson’s fall 2019 theory. The short answer on the latter is that it doesn’t. “Our research does not suggest that the virus was here that early,” says Lisa Kim of Stanford’s media relations team.

Neither does anyone else’s, it appears. “There is zero probability [SARS-CoV-2] was circulating in fall 2019,” tweeted Trevor Bedford, a computational biologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center who has been tracking SARS-CoV-2’s genetic code as it has spread. Allison Black, a genomic epidemiologist working in Bedford’s lab, says this is apparent from researchers’ data. As the virus spreads, it also mutates, much like the way words change in a game of Telephone. By sequencing the virus’s genome from different individual samples, researchers can track strains of the coronavirus back to its origins. They have been continually updating their findings on Nextstrain. (In case you’re wondering, the strains have nothing to do with severity of illness. They’re simply a way to track the virus’s mutations over time.)
...
So what’s really behind this theory? It might be worth considering the source. KSBW’s piece begins by mentioning Stanford Medicine’s research, then quotes Victor Davis Hanson, a Stanford-affiliated source; the piece reads as if Hanson is one of these aforementioned Stanford Medicine researchers. But Hanson is a military historian, not a doctor or scientist; he is affiliated with Stanford’s Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank.* (I reached out to Hanson for comment, but he has not responded; we will update this article if he does.) The piece makes no effort to clarify what the Hoover Institution is, and it delves into Hanson’s “theory” as a prelude to a brief explanation of Stanford Medicine’s study. Hanson’s recent work, published in National Review, suggests he is eager to reopen the American economy. It would be quite convenient, then, to claim that the virus has already torn through the U.S. and granted us immunity. (In that article, Hanson also claims that “much of the virus modeling is nearly worthless” and refers to it as “science,” in scare quotes.)

Hanson also (incorrectly) suggests that the virus’s spread in California came from “Chinese nationals” visiting California. Looking more closely at his recent work reveals a potential political motive for that claim; in a recent op-ed for Fox News, he argues that we already have too many Chinese nationals visiting, studying, or collaborating in the U.S., and that post-coronavirus America should “wake up” and make changes.

https://slate.com/technology/2020/04/coronavirus-circulating-california-2019-bunk.html

[Raine]

87. Car culture and suburban living here in California

probably helps slow the spread especially here in the Los Angeles area where most people don't use mass transit.

[grantcart]

100. Bingo, lack of mass transit is the key

[Beaverhausen]

89. Many of my friends and I were sick as hell right after Christmas last year

I live in Los Angeles. I had a terrible respiratory thing that kept me in bed for 3 days and took forever to finally go away.

One of my friends who I saw a few days before Christmas was just tested and found to have the Covid-19 antibodies, which proves she had it.

This could have happened...

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

90. Yep

Wife of a FB friend got her antibody test back in Malibu and she has Igg antibodies, which means she had it and cleared it a while ago. Last time she was sick was in early November. Took her 3 weeks to get better and she got prescribed Tamiflu as they suspected flu and it had no effect apparently.

Edit- He did follow up with his post and say that this isn't proof that she had COVID then, its also entirely possible that she caught it earlier this year and was asymptomatic.

[pnwmom]

97. That's possible because the first known cases in China happened in November.

But that doesn't mean that most of California got it sometime in 2019 without anyone noticing.

[Autumn]

98. I think it's due to Governor Newsome's actions. He was on top of this.

[FM123]

101. When I clicked on your link it says "page not found".

However, when I click on another link at the same station - abc7news- the doctor discussing this new herd immunity theory debunks it.
https://abc7news.com/health/coronavirus-herd-immunity-in-california-doctor-shares-his-thoughts/6093881/

[LiberalFighter]

103. Hoover Institute not reliable

[Retrograde]

105. At least not about current health issues

It's primarily a source for historians, especially of the 20th century. It's by no means any sort of source for research on current epidemics.

[Historic NY]

104. No it not true// its a bunch of concocted bullshit

[link:https://slate.com/technology/2020/04/coronavirus-circulating-california-2019-bunk.html|

[Ilsa]

106. We need antibody testing and titers.

I'm not quite sure I have faith in this theory. I want to see more information.

[jg10003]

107. Anyone who has rode the subway at rush hour knows why the virus has hit NY hardest.

[fishwax]

108. the "Stanford Team" is the Hoover Institute, a conservative think tank

Given that social distancing has become a major front for the left-right culture wars, and given that those on the right have consistently been skeptical of or outright hostile to social distancing approaches, I'm going to have to take the theory of this "Stanford Team" witha grain of salt.

Here's an article from Slate that discusses the theory in a bit more detail: https://slate.com/technology/2020/04/coronavirus-circulating-california-2019-bunk.html

[crickets]

116. Excellent article; thanks for that. nt

[GulfCoast66]

109. This is Bullshit by the ultimate BS artist.

Victor Davis Hanson is a nutty history professor at Stanford who is a darling of Limbaugh and Hannity.
They use his fascist beliefs combined with his status at Stanford as proof of everything they believe. He knows no more about epidemiology that I do. There is no subject he doesn’t pretend to be an expert on. Economics, medicine, you name it.

Stanford is not a public University. They are full of right wing nuts.

Hopefully this will be enough BS to convince Stanford to cut his cord. But don’t bet on it. They get too much money from right wing sources because of him.

[Demsrule86]

110. This is basically righty BS folks. No one knows if having Covid gives anyone immunity.

[MoonlitKnight]

112. Lower density equals lower viral load

Higher density equals higher load.

We have already seen studies linking viral load with severity of illness.