COVID-19: Those curious about the herd immunity strategy might care to keep an eye on French Polynesia
Through August 2020, the territory reported no local outbreak, though there were 63 reported cases, most dating to May or earlier. All local cases were declared resolved by the end of May.
On August 10, 43 new local cases were reported. That doubled to 87 new daily cases on the 21st, and 160 on 19 September. Total cases have grown by an order of magnitude --- ten times --- per month, doubling in 13 days. Total cases are now 12,362. The total population is slightly more than a quarter million, at 281,528, for a cases-per-million population adjusted rate of 43,910.
There are six countries with a net higher infection by population, the highest being Andorra with 76,974/1M, but in all of these daily case rates are currently falling.
French Polynesia is due to hit 100,000 cases, nearly half its total population, in another month. Possibly somewhat longer as its growth does seem to be falling slightly from straight exponential. But at this scale, it's possible that growth is slowing more due to available susceptible population than to control efforts.
Wikipedia is typically a useful source of information in slowly-developing complex stories. The COVID-19 pandemic in French Polynesia article is something of an exception --- early information is available, but little has been updated since mid-October. In particular, geographic distribution is not indicated. Whether this is concentrated or widely distributed affects strategy and future developments.
Indicated CFR has been about 1.3% (61 deaths, 4,842 resolved). This suggests both likely mortality based on current active cases (7,459), about 97, and the total undetected spread, based on a likely net incident fatality rate of about 0.5%, suggesting a 2.6 multiplier on confirmed infections.
New daily cases may have peaked. French Polynesia lies below the equator, and should generally follow a winter-peaking trend as noted elsewhere, which is to say it has passed its 2020 peak already. Data are thin and not continuously reported.
But total infection, growth rate, and share of population make this a region to watch.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/french-polynesia/
