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A comment on 50% – 75% of cases of Covid-19 are asymptomatic. Parent comment

Re:50% – 75% of cases of Covid-19 are asymptomatic by nicoburns on Tuesday March 17, 2020 @04:27PM (#22609946)
The numbers I ran for the UK put it at 12 years:

No. People in UK: ~66,000,000

Est. proportion of people who will get sick: 80%

Est. proportion of sick people who require intensive care: 5% (in Italy it's 10%)

So that's 60,000,0000.80.05 = 2,640,000

Number of ICU beds in the UK: ~4100 (90% occupied, but let's ignore that for now)

Length of time ICU required: at least 1 week (probably longer, but let's ignore that too)

So that's 2,640,000 / 4100 = 644 weeks or 12 years that we would need to spread the cases over in order to have enough capacity.

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Re:50% – 75% of cases of Covid-19 are asymptomatic by Engineering-MD on Tuesday March 17, 2020 @07:45PM (#22611933)
I did a similar calculation but came back more optimistically (although still on scale of a year to two).

You only need count over 18s as very few cases in this group. It is believed by the UK experts to have a lower fatality rate of 1% and likely lower admission rate due to asymptomatic infections (estimates at 16-75%). Ventilator capacity can increase with stopping surgery and CPAP/other measures can be used in some cases. Treatments developed later should improve efficiency of treatment. Extra ventilators should be manufactured and help ease burden. I think 80% is too high, likely more 60% given an R0 of 2-3. Finally, the chronically unwel elderly are unlikely to benefit from ITU care significantly and would never qualify. With these exceptions it gets down to 1-2 years depending on assumptions.

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Re:50% – 75% of cases of Covid-19 are asymptomatic by jamesrcole on Tuesday March 17, 2020 @10:43PM (#22613087)
Around 18 months (until sufficient quantities of vaccine) is this group of experts’ estimate

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/s...

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Re:50% – 75% of cases of Covid-19 are asymptomatic by jamesrcole on Tuesday March 17, 2020 @10:43PM (#22613085)
Around 18 months (until sufficient quantities of vaccine) is this group of experts’ estimate

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/s...

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Re:50% – 75% of cases of Covid-19 are asymptomatic by blobster on Tuesday March 17, 2020 @04:57PM (#22610338)
It's likely that we'll have a vaccine or at least some kind of treatment by the end of the year, so this should improve the prospects quite a bit.
[ Parent | on HN ]