So idk if I'm late, but yesterday we got results from some test in July indicating about 130,000 people in Ohio had covid antibodies. DeWine saw this and thought, "how can I be a huge cunt?"
https://www.cleveland.com/open/2020...s-to-coronavirus-in-july-statewide-study.html
Gov. Mike DeWine says Ohioans will wear masks for awhile, after new study finds just 1.5% of state had coronavirus antibodies in July
Updated Oct 01, 10:36 PM; Posted Oct 01, 3:10 PM
By
Laura Hancock, cleveland.com
COLUMBUS, Ohio – A study of Ohio adults found that 1.5% had antibodies to COVID-19 in July, when the state conducted a large study to try to estimate the prevalence of the illness.
Statewide, that corresponds to about 133,000 Ohio adults.
Antibodies are proteins developed in people who were previously infected with the coronavirus. Researchers also found that 0.9% of people had active coronavirus illnesses at that time. That corresponds statewide 80,000 people.
The conclusion of the study made by Gov. Mike DeWine is that so few Ohioans are immune that the state’s residents will have to continue to wear masks, physically space themselves apart and exercise other measures to prevent spread of COVID-19. These measures could continue for awhile, until a vaccine is widely available, he said.
The study
Ohio State University and the Ohio Department of Health conducted the study July 9-18, with 727 adults participating, after reaching out to 1,200 households. The households were located across U.S. Census Bureau tracts that are geographically representative of the state, said Abby Norris-Turner, an OSU infectious disease epidemiologist involved in the research.
People were given a blood serological test for antibodies and a nasal swab to look for active infection.
After the laboratory results came back, researchers used Bayesian statistics across the Census tracts “to come up with these estimates that would be a statewide estimate of prevalence,” Norris-Turner said.
The confidence interval for the 1.5% of people with antibodies ranges from 0.3% to 2.9%.
The confidence interval for the active cases ranges from 0.1% to 2%.
Three month antibody detection
Antibodies for COVID-19 can be detected for about three months, so that some of the people were infected as far back as mid-April.
Norris-Turner said that people infected earlier may have some form of coronavirus resistance, but the science isn’t yet definitive.
She said the antibody test results are consistent with American Red Cross antibody tests that are given to people who want to donate blood. They are also similar to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study that included Ohio.
Because antibody tests can’t go back more than three months, there is no way to get a complete picture of how many Ohioans have had COVID-19.
“What we can say more generally and with confidence is the prevalence of COVID-19 of adults in Ohio – this study only studied adults – is relatively low, has remained relatively low,” she said. “The flip side of that coin, of course, is that that means many more people are still susceptible for infection.”
Compared to other states
Ohio, in comparison to regional neighbors, is fairly low in the prevalence of people with antibodies, Norris-Turner said. West Virginia and Wisconsin are lower than Ohio. Indiana is similar to Ohio.
But Ohio is much lower than Pennsylvania and New York.
Expect to wear your mask for years
DeWine later commented on the study, concluded that it shows Ohio isn’t anywhere close to herd immunity, which will occur when most of the population is immune to COVID-19.
That means Ohioans will have to wear masks, socially distance and exercise other preventative measures for quite a while.
“As you heard from the discussion that (Lt. Gov.) Jon Husted had and the study he presented today, we’re not going to get that without the vaccine,” DeWine said. “We’re not going to work our way into this for years. So what we have to do is hang in there, keep this virus low. We’ll keep our foot on its neck and wait. And we wait for the vaccine to hit and when it gets here and the first people start getting the shots, we’ve got to encourage everybody to get one that can."
As with coronavirus testing in the beginning of the pandemic, vaccines will be scarce in the beginning and only given to the most vulnerable people -- such as nursing home residents and first responders.
“It’s going to take a while to get this out," DeWine said. “...(When) we’ve got a significant segment of the population, and I don’t know what that segment is, but a significant segment that have that immunity -- if this does in fact work the way we hope it will --that’s when we see the end of this.”
