Coronavirus Addendum

To avoid a worst case scenario (and the numbers I laid out in the previous post are most definitely NOT the worst case), I'm keeping my eye out for three or four things.

1) (and maybe 2) a vaccine, mass produced enough for everyone. Or a credible antiviral. Careful here, there are definitely snake oil salesmen selling miracle cures.

2 or 3) warm weather reducing the transmission level. Right now nobody knows if it will or not, and it seems to still be spreading fine in Texas and Florida, so... Maybe?  If it does, this will probably just buy us time to find a vaccine or treatment, because it will probably be back in the fall. Like the 1918 pandemic.

3 or 4, and maybe also 5 and 6) social distancing/quarantine/thorough testing to reduce transmission and help identify where it's spreading. This is what we can generally do right now, since we don't yet have a treatment and have no idea whether warm weather will make a difference. It can buy us time to find a vaccine, and/or keep hospitals from being overwhelmed while it runs its course. 

A few more notes. I suspect it's more likely that 3/4 of the population will get it, if not more. Again, though, I'm not an epidemiologist. I'm making that guess because everybody exposed to it seems to get it and spread it, even if they don't show symptoms, so I'm guessing that there might be a quarter of the population (or less) that's isolated enough to somehow miss getting exposed. Probably people in rural areas, for the most part. Or towns with little in the way of shipping and traveling and whatnot. 

If you run my numbers with 225 million people catching it, the numbers are obviously going to be even worse.

There's apparently other factors, like the average age, average number of smokers, and (the big one for us) obesity - which means we'll have different results than South Korea and Italy, purely for demographic reasons. 

Plus, ofc, the socioeconomic elements. 

But ultimately, the biggest factor (outside of vaccines and antivirals) is making sure we don't overwhelm our medical resources... 

Because when doctors have to decide who gets a ventilator and who doesn't, or they're so exhausted that they make mistakes, or there's nobody trained to hook people up to the ventilators, people will die. 

And the worst part is that their deaths will not be inevitable. They might have survived, in other circumstances. 

So that estimate of 900,000 deaths might easily become 2 million, and even much, much, worse. 

So yeah, I'm all about flattening the curve and social distancing right now. 

I hope I'm overestimating things. I'd heard a possible mortality rate of 6%, if hospitals get overwhelmed, and plugging that into my crude calculations is just horrific. 

But I am pretty ticked at all the people who are supposed to be smart, and know better, that still - still! - are acting like we're all blowing it out of proportion, or that we should just let all the vulnerable people die and get back to work.