https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146362/airborne-nit...

They only reversed course when their hospitals became so overloaded that they had to do something.

People seem fixated on this idea that a 1-2% death rate is going to be mean that 1-2% are going to die, but this ignores hospitals being overloaded.

From: http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/02/study-720...

A total of 81% of cases in the JAMA study were classified as mild, meaning they did not result in pneumonia or resulted in only mild pneumonia. Fourteen percent of cases were severe (marked by difficulty breathing), and 5% were critical (respiratory failure, septic shock, and/or multiple organ dysfunction or failure).

So from this study, 19% of the cases were severe and required hospitalization. There are 320 million people in the us, lets say 30% get it at once. That's 320m * .3 * .19 = 18 million people. Of course, some of that 18 million will be taken care of by hospitals, but that would account for only a tiny fraction, there are only about 91k ICU hospital beds in the US

From: http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/cbn/2020/cbnreport-02...

46,500 medical ICU beds in the United States and perhaps an equal number of other ICU beds that could be used in a crisis.

Let's say Covid-19 is equal to influenza in every way. That is a disaster. Influenza is one of the worst illnesses we deal with. If we now have another illness continuously spreading in the community equal in impact to influenza, which infects 35 million people annually, resulting in hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of hospitalizations, and 30,000 - 100,000 deaths each year, that is an absolute calamity.

I don't think anyone thinks we're all going to die from this. But preventing this disease from becoming a permanent addition to the routine illnesses we deal with is a big deal, and people are worried about the necessary social distancing required to contain it.

> (b) that shouldn't really matter to us. Longer term, we'll have a vaccine and it'll be added to the usual seasonal flu vaccine package.

That's a very optimistic take. We have indeed become much better at developing vaccines, but it's not clear that we'll necessarily be able to develop an effective one for coronaviruses. You say that we'll just add it to the seasonal flu vaccine package, but we don't have effective vaccines for influenza. They mitigate risk, but the mutation rate of influenza is such that seasonal vaccines generally only provide a 60% protection, and some seasons much less. And we've been developing these vaccines for decades, with tens of billions spent on flu vaccines and research.

We don't have any vaccine against the common cold, despite massive amounts of research towards that. Most colds are caused by rhinoviruses, but about 15% are caused by species of coronaviruses. And we haven't developed any vaccines against them.

With 55% of people asymptomatic based on the WHO report, I'd say that ship has long since sailed.

> Let's say Covid-19 is equal to influenza in every way. That is a disaster.

It's not ideal to be sure, but it certainly doesn't mean we should be enforcing lockdowns of cities with drones and tanks. The reaction is way overblown. People are hoarding supplies over the flu.

But let's be clear about the costs we're talking about. When we talk about the costs of legislation, we usually discuss the ten year cost. Every decade, influenza kills half a million people in the US. It has direct medical costs of $100 billion, and total productivity losses equal to almost a trillion dollars.

There's some evidence that people can be re-infected with coronavirus. If we have another influenza which people can catch again and again every year, this is an absolutely massive problem. If we can avoid that with short-term social distancing, we should, even if that's a major impact on people's lives.

If it's clear we no longer can, then we should stop. I guess our only disagreement is whether, or not containment still has any chance of working. If we believe it does not, then sure, social distancing is largely pointless, and only buys time.

What I'm saying is that the level of panic right now is well beyond where it should be given the risks.

But it’s a new flu - how much is it worth to stop the spread and not have to deal with it forever

https://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2019/09/16/scientists-close-i...

If everyone uses some common sense, washes hands, is on top of their symptoms and goes to the hospital, etc. everything will be fine.

If everyone just acts like nothing is wrong you could have cluster outbreaks and seriously affect pockets of people. The fear factor plays in here.

The fact that we haven't tested nearly as many in the USA and are acting as more of a passive observer gives me concern.

Is that true though? Half the country gets a flu shot, yet between 10M and 50M still get the flu each year. And to be honest, I'd be very reluctant to go to a hospital for any reason right now unless I felt I was in danger of dying since everyone that thinks they might have coronavirus is going to be sitting in the waiting room beside me.

Is simple handwashing enough top stop the spread of this coronavirus, or is stronger isolation needed? China seems to have a handle on the infection growth but as far as I know, many areas are still on lockdown.

Don't touch your face.

Don't touch your face.

Please stop touching your face

Wash your hands if you need to blow your nose or cough into your hands.

For God's sake, don't wipe your nose with your hand and then touch other stuff.

Don't lick your fingers to help open plastic shopping bags. Impose the death sentence for employees who do this. (Okay, okay. Just fire them.)

If the world at large would stop doing heinous things like blowing their nose at the table in a crowded restaurant or public meeting, my world would be vastly better.

Very few Americans are going to go to the hospital, let alone the doctor if they catch the coronavirus. Because few Americans can afford the costs of healthcare. Even I would be hesitant to go and I have good health insurance because the cost could still be in the thousands of dollars!

So the only people that'll end up going to the doctor are likely those with more severe symptoms while those with more mild issues will continue to spread it by going to work (because they can't afford taking time off) and so forth. We've dug our own hole and now we get to deal with something we never were prepared for.