So the US now has the most coronavirus (shouldn't we call it the 'bat flu'? I mean, we had 'avian flu' and 'swine flu', and people are clearly looking for a name that isn't 'coronavirus' or 'COVID-19'... why not 'bat flu'?) cases in the world. 105,052 as of midnight, according to one of the tracking sites. And there's been a bit of a debate this week, still, about whether things are as bad as epidemiologists say... and whether 'the cure is worse than the disease', and whether we need to open up the economy, and a bunch of other things.
Which makes me furious, so let me lay out all the reasons why.
I've seen various arguments going around that 'it's not really all that bad', though most of the arguments saying that have some serious flaws to them. I want to go through my own thinking on this matter, with the caveat (of course) that I'm not an epidemiologist.
So... the US has over 300 million citizens. Technically it's more like 327 million, but 300 is a nice even number to work with so it's what I've been using for my own calcuations.
I suppose not everyone will get infected, depending on where you are and how isolated you are (which is why these calculations will change depending on how good we are at social distancing.) Right now I'm trying to look at what will happen if we don't do much of anything - if we all go back to our normal routines, reopen businesses, etc. I suspect, in that case, that we'd still see a good three quarters get infected, but I'll be generous and say only half get the disease.
So let's say 150 million get infected. Now, South Korea has done the most testing, so they're numbers are probably the most accurate in terms of mortality rate (as long as there's adequate healthcare. Ventilators, oxygen tanks, etc. This is a best case scenario where everyone gets the best treatment.)
South Korea has a mortality rate of 0.6%. That's only part of the story, though, because many people still need hospitalization (and ventilators, and oxygen) even though they will survive. Numbers are still hard to get right now, but let's say about 14% are severely affected and need hospitalization.
150,000,000 x .006 = 900,000
150,000,000 x .14 = 21,000,000
So we are talking, best case scenario, 900,000 deaths. That's almost a million deaths, but since people think this has been overhyped already, I won't try rounding that up. 900,000. And 21 million people who will need ventilators/oxygen tanks/hospitalization.
Every argument that claims it's not so bad, that tries to say the death toll would only be in the thousands, is misleading. (I want to know where they get their numbers. Are they assuming only a third of the population catches it? Do they think the mortality rate is really .04%? How are they figuring it?)
Every.
Single.
One.
The ones talking about 60,000? Even 600,000? I want to know where they get that number from. And it better not be 'the flu', because with flu shots and some level of immunity, the flu is not going to go through our population as fast as a new disease that nobody has immunity to.
That's not even talking about the hospitalization aspect. 21 million.
Million.
21 million people who will need oxygen and ventilators and nurses and doctors...
And we apparently have about 924,107 hospital beds. Many of which are already occupied. We are short on hospital beds by a couple of orders of magnitude.
I'm using that to give a sense of the scale of the problem, because it's not a count of ventilators or oxygen tanks... and without proper availability of masks and protective equipment, a lot of medical professionals will also get sick... which also means we'll be short doctors and nurses and so on and so forth.
Which is where the real problem starts. Because South Korea's mortality rate comes from having the ability to give everyone the best treatment, but if you don't have the capacity to treat those 21 million people (who can and would survive with treatment), then they will die.
The mortality rate will be much worse than .6%, not because the new coronavirus is that deadly, but because we weren't able to provide the treatment they needed.
This is why flattening the curve is such a big deal. Because we need to make sure we have the resources to adequately treat everyone, and if we don't a lot of people will die completely unnecessary deaths.
So much of it depends on when it hits, and whether it's spread out or happens all at once. Do nothing, and the hospitals are overwhelmed and the death toll grows. Not just from people who catch COVID-19... but from all the other people who need medical care when the hospitals are overwhelmed. Have a heart attack? Get in a car accident?
Good luck getting the care you need.
I've run the numbers to my own satisfaction, though I'm sure this is an oversimplified example and would recommend you contact a credible epidemiologist for a more accurate analysis. Like I said, I'm not trying to take into account counter-measures like social distancing. I also don't know how likely it is that only half the population will catch it... this thing seems ridiculously contagious, especially if it can survive on metal for days.
But I call BS on almost every argument (and there have been a lot in the news this past week) trying to say that its not that bad.
And I wonder about that. About the people making those arguments, and how many places are publishing those arguments and pushing that story line.
Because I can't tell if it's just denial (I understand that. I don't want to believe it will be that bad, either.) or if it's something more sinister.
I can't tell if the people pushing these arguments genuinely believe it, or if they really don't care.
Which gets into the second part of this. We've had a couple of people try arguing that 'it's better to let a few of us die, than to ruin the economy'.
I'll highlight two of the most memorable; the Texas Lt Governor who argued that grandparents would be willing to die for the sake of their children and grandchildren, and Glenn Beck - who said he would rather die than kill the country.
First of all - the economy is not synonymous with the country. Or, to put this another way, Thor: Ragnarok got it exactly right when they said Asgard "is not a place, it's a people."
America is not a place, and it's not it's economy. It's a people. Every single American is precious, something I didn't think we'd have to say to the supposedly 'pro-life' faction.
I don't want to minimize the pain and frustration of economic turmoil. There are a lot of people out there right now, scared and worried because they've been laid off, or can't work and don't have enough savings to wait for things to blow over.
But our starting point has to be "how do we take care of our people". Or, to put it in Biblical terms, 'how can we be good shepherds'.
Every single one of the pundits arguing that it's okay to just let people die has shown some serious moral failings, a completely skewed perspective, and I don't trust their judgment in the slightest.
There are things we can do to address the economy, and the people who survive the next few months will eventually recover. The dead will not.
The pressure to reopen the economy, if it's not coming from a place of denial, shows a crass disregard for the lives of the American people. And for what?
So many of the ones arguing for that seem more concerned, tbh, with the stock market... and with regaining the flow of profits they're used to... then it is with the average American.
The only reason why we can't all sit tight for a few weeks -
Well, okay. There's a couple of reasons. a) people need to eat, so unless they've stocked up enough to get through those weeks, they'll have to go out to buy groceries and whatnot. And we'll still need people to produce the food they need, so there still has to be some flow of goods. b) people need to pay their bills. If they've got rent due, they have to have a paycheck. And if they're living paycheck to paycheck, with no paid time off and no sick time, and their workplaces have shut down, then they're screwed.
And yes, it will be hard for businesses to stay in business for similar reasons. They've got rent to pay, business loans to pay, etc.
Which is why I've seen people arguing for policies that, when you put them all together, act as though we can put the economy on ice.
That is, tell everyone not to collect rent/mortgage/loans during this time of crisis (so those bills don't come due... with no penalties) and give people the resources to stock up on food and whatnot so they can get through this.
If you do that, well. Businesses 'shouldn't' go out of business, and can pick back up when we allow people back out. People 'shouldn't' starve. Landlords 'shouldn't' be screwed by the lack of money coming in, because they're bills shouldn't be collected either.
It's like flash freezing everything, and giving everyone enough resources to buy the groceries they need to stay home.
Would it work? Idk... I'd again encourage you to go find an economist (or really, two or three. Plus some business leaders, small and large, and some average Americans and some financial experts).
I do, however, think that's a better idea than pushing this 'the economy will die, so you all have to go back to work and we don't care how many of you die in the process" policy.
Which makes me furious, so let me lay out all the reasons why.
I've seen various arguments going around that 'it's not really all that bad', though most of the arguments saying that have some serious flaws to them. I want to go through my own thinking on this matter, with the caveat (of course) that I'm not an epidemiologist.
So... the US has over 300 million citizens. Technically it's more like 327 million, but 300 is a nice even number to work with so it's what I've been using for my own calcuations.
I suppose not everyone will get infected, depending on where you are and how isolated you are (which is why these calculations will change depending on how good we are at social distancing.) Right now I'm trying to look at what will happen if we don't do much of anything - if we all go back to our normal routines, reopen businesses, etc. I suspect, in that case, that we'd still see a good three quarters get infected, but I'll be generous and say only half get the disease.
So let's say 150 million get infected. Now, South Korea has done the most testing, so they're numbers are probably the most accurate in terms of mortality rate (as long as there's adequate healthcare. Ventilators, oxygen tanks, etc. This is a best case scenario where everyone gets the best treatment.)
South Korea has a mortality rate of 0.6%. That's only part of the story, though, because many people still need hospitalization (and ventilators, and oxygen) even though they will survive. Numbers are still hard to get right now, but let's say about 14% are severely affected and need hospitalization.
150,000,000 x .006 = 900,000
150,000,000 x .14 = 21,000,000
So we are talking, best case scenario, 900,000 deaths. That's almost a million deaths, but since people think this has been overhyped already, I won't try rounding that up. 900,000. And 21 million people who will need ventilators/oxygen tanks/hospitalization.
Every argument that claims it's not so bad, that tries to say the death toll would only be in the thousands, is misleading. (I want to know where they get their numbers. Are they assuming only a third of the population catches it? Do they think the mortality rate is really .04%? How are they figuring it?)
Every.
Single.
One.
The ones talking about 60,000? Even 600,000? I want to know where they get that number from. And it better not be 'the flu', because with flu shots and some level of immunity, the flu is not going to go through our population as fast as a new disease that nobody has immunity to.
That's not even talking about the hospitalization aspect. 21 million.
Million.
21 million people who will need oxygen and ventilators and nurses and doctors...
And we apparently have about 924,107 hospital beds. Many of which are already occupied. We are short on hospital beds by a couple of orders of magnitude.
I'm using that to give a sense of the scale of the problem, because it's not a count of ventilators or oxygen tanks... and without proper availability of masks and protective equipment, a lot of medical professionals will also get sick... which also means we'll be short doctors and nurses and so on and so forth.
Which is where the real problem starts. Because South Korea's mortality rate comes from having the ability to give everyone the best treatment, but if you don't have the capacity to treat those 21 million people (who can and would survive with treatment), then they will die.
The mortality rate will be much worse than .6%, not because the new coronavirus is that deadly, but because we weren't able to provide the treatment they needed.
This is why flattening the curve is such a big deal. Because we need to make sure we have the resources to adequately treat everyone, and if we don't a lot of people will die completely unnecessary deaths.
So much of it depends on when it hits, and whether it's spread out or happens all at once. Do nothing, and the hospitals are overwhelmed and the death toll grows. Not just from people who catch COVID-19... but from all the other people who need medical care when the hospitals are overwhelmed. Have a heart attack? Get in a car accident?
Good luck getting the care you need.
I've run the numbers to my own satisfaction, though I'm sure this is an oversimplified example and would recommend you contact a credible epidemiologist for a more accurate analysis. Like I said, I'm not trying to take into account counter-measures like social distancing. I also don't know how likely it is that only half the population will catch it... this thing seems ridiculously contagious, especially if it can survive on metal for days.
But I call BS on almost every argument (and there have been a lot in the news this past week) trying to say that its not that bad.
And I wonder about that. About the people making those arguments, and how many places are publishing those arguments and pushing that story line.
Because I can't tell if it's just denial (I understand that. I don't want to believe it will be that bad, either.) or if it's something more sinister.
I can't tell if the people pushing these arguments genuinely believe it, or if they really don't care.
Which gets into the second part of this. We've had a couple of people try arguing that 'it's better to let a few of us die, than to ruin the economy'.
I'll highlight two of the most memorable; the Texas Lt Governor who argued that grandparents would be willing to die for the sake of their children and grandchildren, and Glenn Beck - who said he would rather die than kill the country.
First of all - the economy is not synonymous with the country. Or, to put this another way, Thor: Ragnarok got it exactly right when they said Asgard "is not a place, it's a people."
America is not a place, and it's not it's economy. It's a people. Every single American is precious, something I didn't think we'd have to say to the supposedly 'pro-life' faction.
I don't want to minimize the pain and frustration of economic turmoil. There are a lot of people out there right now, scared and worried because they've been laid off, or can't work and don't have enough savings to wait for things to blow over.
But our starting point has to be "how do we take care of our people". Or, to put it in Biblical terms, 'how can we be good shepherds'.
Every single one of the pundits arguing that it's okay to just let people die has shown some serious moral failings, a completely skewed perspective, and I don't trust their judgment in the slightest.
There are things we can do to address the economy, and the people who survive the next few months will eventually recover. The dead will not.
The pressure to reopen the economy, if it's not coming from a place of denial, shows a crass disregard for the lives of the American people. And for what?
So many of the ones arguing for that seem more concerned, tbh, with the stock market... and with regaining the flow of profits they're used to... then it is with the average American.
The only reason why we can't all sit tight for a few weeks -
Well, okay. There's a couple of reasons. a) people need to eat, so unless they've stocked up enough to get through those weeks, they'll have to go out to buy groceries and whatnot. And we'll still need people to produce the food they need, so there still has to be some flow of goods. b) people need to pay their bills. If they've got rent due, they have to have a paycheck. And if they're living paycheck to paycheck, with no paid time off and no sick time, and their workplaces have shut down, then they're screwed.
And yes, it will be hard for businesses to stay in business for similar reasons. They've got rent to pay, business loans to pay, etc.
Which is why I've seen people arguing for policies that, when you put them all together, act as though we can put the economy on ice.
That is, tell everyone not to collect rent/mortgage/loans during this time of crisis (so those bills don't come due... with no penalties) and give people the resources to stock up on food and whatnot so they can get through this.
If you do that, well. Businesses 'shouldn't' go out of business, and can pick back up when we allow people back out. People 'shouldn't' starve. Landlords 'shouldn't' be screwed by the lack of money coming in, because they're bills shouldn't be collected either.
It's like flash freezing everything, and giving everyone enough resources to buy the groceries they need to stay home.
Would it work? Idk... I'd again encourage you to go find an economist (or really, two or three. Plus some business leaders, small and large, and some average Americans and some financial experts).
I do, however, think that's a better idea than pushing this 'the economy will die, so you all have to go back to work and we don't care how many of you die in the process" policy.
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