> Because the curve is almost not rising, even in linear form

That's the global numbers, which are still dominated by China. In China there may have been a real slowdown thanks to draconian measures.

But have a look at the WHO numbers excluding China. It's definitely still exponential. The doubling time has even been shrinking. My plot:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQTpoR9gmgei...

Source of the numbers: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...

Plus, the Chinese are most likely lying to "save face"

From what I can tell, this is largely because the testing is not in place in most parts of the world where this virus is likely spreading. Also, we largely do not have the capacity to test people, even if we had the infrastructure in place, because most people do not present with severe symptoms.

In the US, it is increasingly obvious that there are more cases than are being tested/reported. More and more healthcare professionals are reporting individuals with severe flu symptoms either not being tested for anything, or testing negative for Influenza. Proper quarantine is not being implemented to or from the US, so the subset of people who are infected but not confirmed can still travel and spread this disease.

One step further: hospitals are not prepared - at all - for this. Healthcare workers have been exposed within the last week at Harborview in Seattle, with a patient who later tested positive. Within the last week. This has been the global healthcare story for 2 months now, and major trauma centres are not treating all incoming respiratory patients as presumptive COVID-19.

Just insane.

This isn't like the common cold. There have been cases of reinfection reported already.

They are most likely not reinfections. You can still have the virus reproducing in your body, yet have recovered and are no longer spreading it. If you’re in this post-infection period, you’ll still intermittently test positive (especially when your stool is sampled). This is similar to EBV or HIV.

These tests (RT-PCR) also aren’t sensitive enough to test whether the virus is alive or dead, they test for the presence of genetic material.

Viruses are not living things.

How many cases? Are you talking about the woman in Japan?

The outbreak in China is indeed somewhat (maybe even largely) under control. But if you look at the trend in cases outside China, the growth is still clearly exponential [0].

[0]: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/...

Are you sure you looked correctly?

Newly Infected vs. Newly Recovered is the one you want.

Ps. I'm using the same site, you should check how much influence Iran has in your quick-check. Also South Korea and I wouldn't be suprised with North-Korea to popup either.

It seems to be that the WHO had the correct actions for pandemics ( I was positively suprised when looking at the actual numbers). The cases in Europe are staying pretty low.

The "Newly Infected vs. Newly Recovered" chart on the site I linked above includes cases in China. The virus does in fact look to be somewhat under control in China, but not elsewhere.

Iran and South Korea like I mentioned ? ;)

Healthy doctors your age have already died from it.

At a 0.2% rate. Nothing to welcome, sure, but also not something worth defeatism.

From where are you drawing that rate? I was speaking of Dr. Li Wenliang, aged 33, who was one of the initial 8 doctors to raise the alarm and try to stop this epidemic in Wuhan months ago.

From everything I've read, both in Chinese and English, considerably more than 1% of the medical personnel at the front lines have perished.

I have read that the amount of exposure can be quantified, and it is possible to have a heavy dose of the virus -- which makes no sense to me -- and that healthcare workers are likely to receive these heavy doses due to frequent exposure.

I always thought that once a virus was present in your system, it was there, like a boolean, not like a degree of infection. But apparently that is not true.

That idea is not true and in fact is extremely dangerous thinking. One example is HIV. It isn't a matter of having it or not having it, the viral load makes a big difference as to what symptoms someone may exhibit as well as how likely they are to infect someone else. If your viral load is low enough then the chances of infecting other people can get low enough to be considered non-existant. On the other hand if you expose yourself to more sources of HIV, it could increase your viral load and increase symptoms and complications associated with the virus.

Is your assumption that getting Sick now will make you immune to SARS-CoV-2 virus long term?

X years old and not aware of statistical probability?

Mutation can happen if there are many generations in between. My option could have 1-3 generations in between which is far more realistic in a "controlled environment" than in a uncontrolled one.

Your option is not reality and you're trivializing this to the common flu.

Would you have done the same with SARS? Because it's similar to that disease (from what we know: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1287568/).

It can destroy your airway and it may even lie dormant in your brain and come back when you get another flu. Surprise! Now you're dealing with a fever and pneumonia in your 30s.

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-in-charts-covid-...

Look at the global spread map. 92,303 infected vs 48,190 recovered (and these numbers are probably WAY underreported). There are 40k people still in recovery? How many more is that going to add to the death toll? The death rate is 3.3% very much not like the flu.

And if you go get sick and need medical treatment, guess what? Hospitals are going to be backed up.

It's just an incredibly irresponsible response. But be my guest and start licking some doorknobs. I'll be quarantining myself.