Total of those receiving unemployment benefits falls below 20 million
Last edited Thu Jun 25, 2020, 09:52 AM - Edit history (1)
Source: CNBC
Jobless claims totaled 1.48 million last week as unemployment related to the coronavirus pandemic remained stubbornly high.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting 1.35 million claims. While the weekly numbers remained high and were worse than expectations for the second straight week, the total of those receiving benefits continued to fall. Total recipients, or continuing claims, fell by 767,000 to 19.52 million.
The most recent number marked the 14th straight week that filings remained above 1 million, a total first eclipsed for the week ended March 21. That was shortly after the World Health Organization declared the pandemic and much of the U.S. economy went into lockdown.
Claims had never been above a million prior to that. The coronavirus-era record is just shy of 6.9 million, hit in late March.
Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/25/weekly-jobless-claims.html
Looks like they decided to change the headline to do some spin (IMHO)...
Original headline - U.S. weekly jobless claims total 1.48 million, vs 1.35 million estimate
= new reply since forum marked as read
but then it was embedded in its usual jumble of "Live updates" so I had to hunt for some other source that had something substantial enough to post (preferably not requiring a subscription), so CNBC came to the rescue! 
there is no correlation between being asymptomatic and production of antibodies. The "positive" results generally being reported are not from the results of antibody tests but by those (via PCR analysis) looking for the presence of the actual virus. And what they have been finding (the last I saw) was that for those who have produced antibodies (based on the antibody tests), these antibodies don't stick around very long and are apparently all but gone after a couple months, meaning the person might get infected again (and more cases are popping up where that has happened).
It's literally like the luck of the draw whether an asymptomatic person infects someone who can't produce antibodies and/or someone who has the types of underlying conditions that weaken them enough to cause symptoms (in some cases, extreme enough to require hospitalization) and/or those who are on medications (like my sister) that are designed to suppress the immune system.
The key metric to look at now, with all the testing going on, is the "positivity" rate - meaning what % of a set of tests being done (whether 100 tests or tens of thousands), are coming up positive. Current guidance has suggested the target of trying to get that under 5%. That percentage helps to determine the Rate of Transmission ("R0" ), where you want to have R0 <1 meaning 1 person infects "less than one person" (which buys time so hospitals aren't overwhelmed).
The "deaths" are going to be a lagging indicator, coming weeks after any hospitalizations, which themselves are a lagging indicator from a positive test. And because this virus is apparently undergoing an ebb and flow throughout the country (and even within states), "deaths" may drop for a period but then might suddenly surge again later, say after a re-opening "gone wrong" a month or so previously. 
only way we will know what PERCENTAGE of asymptomatic or symptomatic have created anti-bodies if EVERY person testing positive is tested for presence of anti-bodies.
And that is something that they may need to do and it may actually be possible down the road as they continue to develop and refine the tests.
It is a fact that not everyone will produce antibodies for whatever bacteria or virus they pick up. That's why vaccines have never been dubbed "100% effective". They can aim for them to be as highly effective as possible but they will never get there (at least in our era of how medicine is handled).
The fact that some colds are caused by rhinoviruses (most common) and others can be caused by some type of coronavirus, and there is no "vaccine for the common cold", should be a clue. People "catch colds" (although some claim they never do) and so with all the instances of that, we aren't immune from them.
When you are talking viruses, they are extremely difficult to deal with (you might recall there are some anti-viral treatments out there that supposedly reduce the symptoms of certain influenza viruses if used early on at onset (like Tamiflu and Relenza). But there aren't really any "cures".
And as a note related to something like small pox or even polio (another virus that was widespread) - these things have mutated over the decades so what might have worked as antibodies for an earlier form, are either only mildly effective or not effective at all for the newer versions.
For example what has happened with polio -
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/06/28/534403083/mutant-strains-of-polio-vaccine-now-cause-more-paralysis-than-wild-polio
and
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/nov/28/polio-outbreaks-in-four-african-countries-caused-by-mutation-of-strain-in-vaccine
Thus the need for boosters...
And what is also unknown at this time is what the effect might be later on in life by those infected by COVID-19 (including asymptomatic individuals). Chicken Pox (varicella-zoster virus) infection in a child (which would purportedly mean later "immunity" to it) can re-manifest as Shingles in adults, which is what triggered the development of a Shingles vaccine.
So really, there is no "for life". There is so much that we don't know but you have to go on and live life regardless.
and not being counted...........or have used up there claim benefit..............
