The most recent figures out of China are that mortality is <1% in areas where there aren’t many cases, so there enough intensive care capacity for everyone that needs it. It’s more like 5% in Wuhan, because the healthcare system was overwhelmed. That doesn’t make me super optimistic about our prospects.
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While it is hitting the elderly hard, the very young seem to be practically immune.
EDIT: Not that they don’t get it, but they don’t seem to be noticeably impacted when they do. Bunch of plague spreaders, really.
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I’ve covered this before, but it bears repeating. Nationwide we (USA) have roughly 60k ICU beds. If we take the low estimate of 40% infected
(140 mil), and 20% of those requiring medical intervention (28 mil), and 50% of those requiring ICU care (14 mil), we are only 13,940,000 ICU beds short. Now, not all those will happen simultaneously, but there are others who will need those beds as well. Might be an issue, eh?
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I agree. That said, this economy sucks ass. It rewards the very few magnificently at the expense of everyone else. If this ends up being a catalyst for massive change, that could be a good thing, or it could be a bad thing. But the status quo is heavily weighted to favor the few, and the machine is in place to keep it inequitable for as long as they possibly can.
In the present economy, I can’t retire. Neither can my wife. We are on course to work until we die. I would love to see a change that shakes things up a bit, and possibly ends with sensible healthcare and more socially friendly treatment for everyone, not just the folks with deep pockets and blood on their hands.
Perhaps. Most likely. Then again, who knows what the next shoe to drop will be? This may not be the knockout punch, but it’s clearly staggering the economy at the moment. The ripples aren’t even done being made, much less coming to rest. People are losing wages, and wages are needed to keep the machine grinding on.
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I’m sorry, but I don’t think you took even a bit of my point. Whether you “care” about the world economy or not, it’s going to affect you and billions of people around the world, for good or ill. It’s like not “caring” whether there is going to be an earthquake or a parade coming to your city tomorrow–you’re more than free to not care, but you’re probably going to notice the difference in outcomes.
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Wikipedia has an interesting article about the Spanish Flu, I suggest you read it. It explains several factors that made the Spanish Flu spread so fast and kill so many people, our situation today is quite different, and coronavirus is not the Spanish Flu, even if the case fatality rate is currently estimated at a similar number.
Capitalism is a mindset, not a machine. As long as we allow the cultural hegemony of capitalism to persist, it will come back to haunt us.
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I’ve also seen reports going around that estimate air pollution is keeping us from suffering an additional 1C (!!!) of warming. Talk about a bind.
CO2/GHG output from China is estimated off (based on knowing industrial output and knowing GHG byproducts for those sectors). Air pollution is also down. I wonder which effect dominates?
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As of the end of February, B/Victoria(V1A.3) influenza has been responsible in the US alone for millions of illnesses, 280,000 hospitalizations of confirmed cases, and 16,000 deaths between last autumn and now. There is no vaccine specific to that subclade, although a related vaccine is about 45% effective. (Influenza-like illness overall between 1 October and 22 February had 32-45 million estimated cases, 310,000-560,000 hospitalizations and 18,000-46,000 deaths.The large range of the numbers reflects the fact that influenza is not a reportable disease and the US infectious-disease surveillance system is relatively ineffective.) Hospitalization rate has been about 53 per 100,000 population, going up to 117 per 100,000 in the very old and 80 in the very young.
This is not newsworthy, but CoVID-19 is.
If you haven’t got your flu shot yet, it’s not too late. 45% immunity isn’t nothing, and herd immunity is a thing. (Also make sure that your other shots are up to date, since an infection with any of these viruses invites an opportunistic infection by another disease.)
[ETA: I’m not downplaying CoVID-19. Coronavirus may be a catastophe. Seasonal flu is known to be a recurring catastrophe. But maybe the devil you know is less scary than the devil you don’t?]
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Dude, if you choose to believe that covid-19 is no big deal, you certainly may. Don’t let facts get in your way. Orthomyxoviridae are not exactly the same as coronoviridae, and medical and socioeconomic conditions are certainly not identical to 1918. But the numbers speak for themselves, medical personnel are preparing for serious ugliness and, despite the “don’t worry, be happy” from Trump & Co., the shit is getting very very real. I shall respect you unwillingness to accept that. It’s not a wise hill to die on, but you be you.
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I believe there is a lot of ground between “just like the Spanish Flu” and “no big deal”.
And yet it appears the numbers tell me one thing, and you another. 
But we’ll find out soon enough, so let’s leave it at that for now.
Isn’t being 'splained down to such fun, Doc?
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Lovin’ it. I get this from antivaxxers too.
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Oh, I can just imagine.
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Thing is, I actually hope you are correct. The difference is that I have a responsibility to my colleagues and patients to take it very seriously and be ready if the current estimates (not mine, but expert consensus) are correct. If it peters out and fewer people die, i am absolutely good with that. If it does not, my job is to be prepared to deal with the fallout. And to stay on top of the current data points and research findings, which I share here. So yeah, I hope to God you are right. I just can’t afford to trust in that.
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That said, I only just now read the article wherein the author says
Most of the reduction in demand can be traced to China where the coronavirus has caused what IHS Markit describes as an “unprecedented stoppage” of economic activity.
which I would take to mean that the reduction is less travel related than construction, shipping, factory, etc. related. All that will just start up again as before.
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After the last week reading about the stoppage of everything shipping from China (and all the knock-on effects that will have purely domestically: lack of parts and materials for US businesses, lack of shipping containers for domestic transport), when I read this, my inner wrestling announcer just shouted:
“LET’S GET READY FOR A RECESSIOOOOON!”
So that’ll be fun, on top of all the people dying. I hope something good comes out of this, e.g. a recognition that the US needs public healthcare and paid time off, that these things help everyone stay healthy, even in the absence of a pandemic.
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While the Coronavirus is distracting everyone I seem to recall that a massive global economic downturn was slated for, oh, about now. That was in order for economies to correct and rebalance. Of course nobody knew what the tipping point was going to be - I think we were all waiting for a major conflict. So the thought occurs, are governments taking any advantage of this current economic distress to achieve that rebalancing, or does this event just ease us all into an economic depression slated to last a damn long time?
A further thought (and this is cheery). Remember how researchers were warning us that global warming would mean that tropical diseases would expand into a much broader footprint? Perhaps this is an example of how viruses tucked away in the forest will successively ravage the world?
Oh, and for anyone who doesn’t think that Covid-19 is not the Spanish Flu - it is its second cousin - they are both corona viruses. It is interesting that Covid-19s spread in South Korea, which has a robust response to the crisis, has grown so quickly. The contrast to Chinese figures is so marked it makes one think that perhaps it is more like a million affected in China (?). Mere conjecture of course.
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Fort Bragg has a lot of Skunks. They come over the hill from Willits.
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I’ve already heard about people stopping work on projects because of lack of painters’ dust masks. (Which offer the wearer no protection against airborne viruses! They do protect casual contacts to some extent against transmission from an infected wearer, but that’s not why people are hoarding them.)
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