[ExI] down by the riverside

[Stuart LaForge]

Quoting Spike:
>
> Over time, confirmed cases accumulate.  If any fatality who was a  
> confirmed covid case counts as a covid fatality, then herd immunity  
> would result in that graph up there will eventually turn green.  Now  
> it is about equal, but the right side of that graph should be more  
> homers than non-homers, so it should transition from blue to green.   
> Reasoning: people continue to perish in nursing homes, even if the  
> virus runs its course, but the non-homers wouldn?t as much.
>
>
>
> Smart amateur immunologists among us, does that sound reasonable to  
> you?  Why or why not?

That does sound reasonable to me, especially because many homers are  
already chronically ill and potentially immunocompromised. As a result  
an infection that should have been resolved in 2 weeks takes a month  
or longer. Even if a resident is capable of shaking off the virus  
eventually, if he slips in the shower during a coughing fit and cracks  
his head open while positive for virus, he is still a COVID death.

Incidentally there is anecdotal evidence that people who are immune to  
the virus can develop subclinical asymptomatic reinfection after  
several months. So there is a slim possibility that it might become  
endemic in nursing homes as a nosocomial infection long after the  
general population is immune due to constant re-exposure by immune but  
mildly reinfected visitors and staff. This is likely to be exacerbated  
by profit-motive if the government continues to maintain a bounty on  
so-called COVID deaths.

Stuart LaForge