By Steve Sailer
05/11/2020
From the US Embassy in Slovenia (Slovenia is the former Yugoslav republic northeast of Italy and south of Austria, not the former eastern half of Czechoslovakia):
The Slovenian government released the results of a nationwide antibody study in which 3.1% of participants tested positive for antibodies indicating prior exposure to the novel coronavirus. Based on the study, researchers say with 95% certainty that 2-4% of the population had an immune response to Covid-19, far less than the 60-80% immunity rate believed to be needed to prevent renewed spread of the virus.
Yesterday there was one additional confirmed case, for a cumulative total of 1,450. There was one additional fatality yesterday, bringing the total to 100. The number who are currently hospitalized decreased to 47 persons, of whom 12 are in intensive care.
So, Slovenia is another example of a population far from Herd Immunity. Yet, Slovenia, like Austria, is a remarkable success story, having almost eradicated new cases of coronavirus:
It’s only 256 miles from poor Bergamo to the Slovenian border.
With a population of 2,078,000 in Slovenia, a 3.1% infection rate would mean 65k infected. A total of 100 deaths would indicate an infection fatality rate of 0.16%. In Slovenia, deaths have been running about one per day for the last week, so it seems unlikely that there will be a huge number more deaths unless a second wave of infections takes off.
That compares to an infection fatality rate of at least 0.84% in Bergamo province in Italy, where it appears that herd immunity has been achieved, with approximately 2/3rds of survivors infected.
This is all rather curious. We see high infection fatality rates approaching 1% in Bergamo and in New York City, but much lower infection fatality rates in countries with lower infection rates. One possibility is that the hospitals in both Bergamo and New York City were overwhelmed, although that would seem to suggest that hospitals can do a better job of saving lives than we would think. Or perhaps the lower the infection rate, the lower the infection fatality rate for reasons of biology (such as the Viral Load theory) rather than of hospital logistics?
[Comment at Unz.com]
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