A very tentative possibility is that the infected population may be higher than we thought - which if true implies that the mortality rate is lower. Far too early to have much confidence, but let's hope this is right.
4 days later, we are now at ~100 deaths per hour. The shutdowns take 1-2 weeks to show up in infection rates and probably longer in death rates, so this does not mean that what we're doing is not working.
A very tentative possibility is that the infected population may be higher than we thought - which if true implies that the mortality rate is lower. Far too early to have much confidence, but let's hope this is right.
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For those who think the young have nothing to worry about: even if they do not die, a lot of people in their 20s and 30s will need to be hospitalised because of it. And quite a few of those are expected to have lasting lung damage.
The US CDC report reports this happened to about 1 in 5 young adults (see Table), but I think those precise numbers are in doubt because of the number of undiagnosed cases in the US. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm We are now at >1000 new cases & ~50 deaths reported *per hour*. And they are still increasing exponentially. In another week, numbers like these will probably seem like an incredible improvement.
Edit: these are for the whole world. You can check your country's numbers at the link. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ This appears to be a very well thought-out plan for how we should deal with the coronavirus - and it's not what most countries are attempting to do.
Important: flattening the curve is *not enough*. No country has enough hospital capacity to deal with the massive surge of cases that will arise, even if it's slower. Japan is best prepared, and it has 13 hospital beds per 1000 people. The global average is about ~2 per 1000 people. Emergency care/ICU beds are ~20 times lower than that. And nobody has any pre-existing immunity to this virus, so everyone can get infected. Instead of slowing the surge through relatively mild action, we ought to go very hard now to reverse it, as China and South Korea have done. This is presently being dismissed as an option because it is thought that this would have to last many months, and when you relax, you get the epidemic anyway. But this is not true - a few weeks of intense effort could buy us the time to 1) do much more testing and tracing, which lets us identify new cases early and prevent subsequent surges, 2) develop medication/vaccines, 3) build up medical capacity, and 4) learn much more than we presently know about it. I am not an expert in this, so I would love to hear counter-arguments. https://tomaspueyo.medium.com/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56 Alright, since I'm still seeing lots of people being rather blasé about this: it's past time in most countries to actually start distancing yourselves. Reducing contact still helps if it's not practical to isolate yourself. You will likely be fine, but do it for the sake of the vulnerable - the elderly, those with lung problems, and those who will need medical care for other conditions when this explodes near you (and it will). Help slow this down.
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Why I did thisI am not an expert on Covid, viruses, or vaccines, but I am a scientist with relevant training. I believe we have a responsibility to clearly communicate science to the public, especially in emergencies. So I started to write summaries of Covid developments on facebook in March 2020 to help friends and family understand the situation as it unfolded. This is an archive of those posts (created much later). |