coronavirus...put it into perspective

rexlion wrote:
China seems to be on the downhill side of this outbreak. They say the incidence of new cases as well as the incidence of deaths in China have both declined for the past month. China's population is 1.435 Billion. Total deaths attributed to this virus, as of now, stands at 3,255. If my math is correct, that's a mortality rate of 0.00022% of the population in the nation that was the origin and epicenter of the disease. (Mortality rates are supposed to be calculated versus total population, but many news sources are figuring death number versus number diagnosed with the disease, a misleading statistic if it's called "mortality rate.")

China was able to bring it under control by issuing a total lockdown of a broad area. They drew a big circle on a map and froze the whole population. They can do that since their a totalitarian society. Regarding the numbers, 15% of everyone who gets Covid19 gets hospitalized. So you can see their concern with having to hospitalize
millions. We have about 925,000 staffed hospital beds in the country, so this virus could more than mow them over easily. I am hopeful that some of the measures they are taking will slow it down. We have some herd immunity to the flu, which keeps it at a mortality of .1% We have no immunity to this. Combine that with the fact that it spreads much more easily than the flu, and Covid19's very long incubation period, and it's a very serious matter. The incubation period for flu is several days or so, so folks are able to avoid the obvious quickly. But Covid19's incubation period of 2 weeks, allows it to be spread rapidly and quickly since the individuals are fully infectious during that period and they have no symptoms. Four out of five people who catch it got it from someone with no symptoms. One of the issue's is that folks find it hard to believe it's happening, including me, and I been in health care 50 years.