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> if the population prevalence is 1%

But the population prevalence is much more than 1%: 80k deaths at a 1% infection fatality rate (and I believe this is high, but I'm being conservative) implies 8,000,000 infections so far. This is more like 2.5%. So far. 95% CI for specificity is 99.5%, so you can be reasonably confident that you're doing better than 85%.

It may not be a perfect intervention, but you could really reduce risk. If there's an 85% chance that someone is immune, they do not share a household with a vulnerable person, and they are not in a high risk group themselves-- you've reduced the risk of death to basically nothing.

I disagree with it for other reasons (it incents people to go get sick to be free/be able to work/etc).



> I disagree with it for other reasons (it incents people to go get sick to be free/be able to work/etc).

On an individual basis yes, but doign large scale scientifically/statistically relevant antibody tests to see just how many people have actually had covid-19, would be very beneficial.


This high prevalence is specific to a few regions though. I most states the registered total cases are still way less than 0.5%.




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