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Politics

COVID-19 response being downplayed, not exaggerated - sm

Posted: Mar 16th, 2020 - 1:43 pm

The government will never tell you to panic, but they are panicking and are taking active measures to stop the spread of this virus.

The government understands exponential increases and they're tracking the hospitalization rate in Italy, China, and Iran. It's bad.

The problem isn't that the virus is deadly. Ebola was deadly. The problem is how quickly it spreads and the incubation period vs. how long you're contagious. The fact that you can be contagious for up to a week before you have symptoms coupled with the fact that your symptoms can be mild is a major issue.

The symptoms are only mild for about 90% of the population. People with underlying health conditions (diabetes, respiratory issues, immunocompromised, cancer, heart conditions, etc.) require weeks of hospitalization and ventilator/respirator support.

Now let's talk about that exponential increase... The question is how quickly will the cases double. (Not how many cases are confirmed, we will always have more confirmed cases than actual cases.) This page is tracking the doubling rate of confirmed cases across individual countries:

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus#growth-country-by-country-view

That page also explains what an exponential increase is. 500 cases become 1 million cases after doubling 11 times. Another 10 doublings give you 1 billion cases. The virus will spread until everyone who is susceptible has been exposed. Usually that's greater than 1% or 2% of the total population.

(China is a special case. They stopped the spread by monitoring everyone's smartphone data and sending text messages to people who had been exposed. Those invasive resources aren't available in the West.)

The problem now is it's spreading so quickly that the people who need hospitalization will overrun the capacity of the medical systems. This is where Italy is now. The rest of the EU is on the same track. When that happens medical care is rationed in a battlefield triage manner. People with pre-existing conditions, the elderly, and the disabled are refused care in favor of treating those with a better chance of survival. Soon, states within the US will have to quarantine themselves as state hospitals are overrun. There will be no treatment available for the usual things you'd go to a hospital for.

The Government (Fed/State) recognizes these facts. They're trying to slow the spread so the medical system isn't overwhelmed. Yes, we'll have hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people who will need hospitalization and medical care. We want that number to be spread out over Summer and into Fall and Winter. Not all bunched up in March, April, and May.

There are other issues as well. The personal protective equipment (PPE) that healthcare workers use is all manufactured in China. The raw materials for that gear comes from China. The US couldn't manufacture it if they tried. The PPE needs to be thrown out after a few uses. We don't have enough to keep healthcare workers safe and active if the system is overrun.

I get that you want to protect your local businesses and keep things running by spending money. But there's going to be a serious financial fallout from this no matter what happens. If Italy collapses economically, it will take the rest of the EU with it. If the EU goes down so does the US. We're already on that trajectory. Our economy isn't the most important thing. The most important thing is saving as many lives as possible by slowing the spread.

**We need to keep the vulnerable 10% to 15% of the population as healthy as possible so they don't overrun the medical system.**

In addition to the link above, I've been monitoring this page for current stats.

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6



LINK/URL: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

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