(02-26-2020 01:42 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-26-2020 12:10 PM)grubs Wrote:  

(02-26-2020 11:05 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(02-25-2020 08:48 PM)bullet Wrote:  50 million died in 1918-19. With the same rate, that would be almost 200 million with today's world population.

Don't go to either extreme on this.

Don't panic and think you can't go out of your house at all.

Don't dismiss it as "no big deal" either.

Exercise caution, and take the threat seriously.

We do have a historical reference: the Spanish Flu of 1918-19. Worldwide it killed more people than WWI. There's an entire cemetery in my home town that filled with victims of that disease. Your town may have one like it - although no one talked about ours, so I doubt they talk about yours... but I'll guarantee you someone in your town died from the Spanish Flu. To this day, no one really knows what it was - it could even be the same pathogen as the Coronavirus for all we know.

1918 was H1N1. We've sequenced it from the graves. Bacterial Pneumonia after infection was the real killer then. Cov19 will likely follow other viral outbreaks and have an 18 month spread. We know it's very infectious. r0 might be at 7. Bump this spring which will be knocked down as the weather in the NH warms. Returning in the Fall and Spring until 70-80% will have been exposed. The CFRs are likely very high compared to actual due to large numbers of mild or asymptomatic cases not being tested. I've seen the CFR as low as .23% which is bad but no where near 10% or even 2%.

Even if everything you say is correct---the fact its so much more infectious means it would probably kill more. That said---I think you are almost certainly underestimating it. You dont close down entire cities over the flu. China locked down over 70 million people over this virus. China has allowed its entire economy to nearly grind to a halt---and continues to do so. China deals with the flu every single year---so why such a different reaction to this virus? One thing you are correct on---the real killer is the pneumonia (but I dont think its bacterial this time around).

They are shutting things down because they are seeing what it can do first-hand and understand it isn't just another run of the flu.

If China were to have 50% infection rate and the real death rate say 4% you are looking at nearly 28 million deaths. Being super conservative, say 1% of the infected are in the workforce and left permanently disabled that's 7 million workers shifted from work to some safety net and probably 7 million in the workforce dead assuming greater deaths among the old and young.

Similar rates in the US would be 6.5 million dead and 1.6 million permanently disabled. By comparison deaths in all US wars combined is just under 1.3 million.

Now it isn't time to start being a prepper or hoarding supplies because we have a huge advantage over China. We became aware of it long before it spread all over creation while it was actively spreading there before they realized they were dealing with something new.

North America and Europe are in much better position to contain than China where it has already spread significantly and less developed nations not as equipped to identify, quarantine and support patients even without a vaccine or direct treatment.