{"id":8536,"date":"2020-03-01T10:01:13","date_gmt":"2020-03-01T15:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/richard.rathe.org\/?p=8536"},"modified":"2020-03-07T11:27:07","modified_gmt":"2020-03-07T16:27:07","slug":"the-approaching-covid19-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/2020\/the-approaching-covid19-pandemic","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on the Approaching COVID19 Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a>
source:nytimes.com (click to enlarge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I’ve annotated this NY Times<\/a> graphic, rounding the estimates for COVID19 (aka the 2019 novel coronavirus) to 2% mortality<\/strong> and 2 people infected<\/strong> for every one who has the disease. What this suggests is the infection rate will be similar to a bad cold season, but unlike the common cold, a significant number of people will die of the disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not good news, but it is also not catastrophic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By comparison the 1918 “Spanish” Flu<\/a> had a similar infection rate but killed 1 in 10<\/strong>! The 1918 Flu infected approximately one third of ALL the people on earth<\/strong>\u2026 and that was before air travel!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on these numbers alone, up to 110 million<\/strong> people in the US could be infected. 80%<\/strong> of these cases should be mild, 20%<\/strong> will need some form of special care in hospitals or at home, and 2% (2.2 million) could die<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One area where the 1918 Flu differs from COVID19 is the latter does not seem to kill children<\/strong>, which is a small bright spot. However, children may be a source of infection for vulnerable adults<\/strong>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note that the currently reported mortality rate<\/strong> is over 3% but here in the US we have done almost NO testing<\/em><\/strong>, so the total number of infected individuals is unknown, but likely to be much higher. This means the reported mortality rate is probably inflated<\/strong> due to lack of good data. I’ll stick with 2% as a conservative figure for now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also important to remember one of the lessons of the 1918 epidemic, things may look better when warmer weather returns but this should not<\/em> be reassuring. In the spring of 1918 it looked like the disease was weakening, but it returned with a vengeance in the fall and winter!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social Isolation and Hand Washing<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

For the general public, not living with or caring for a sick person, wearing masks<\/strong> really doesn’t help. Social isolation<\/strong> (eg, staying home) and effective hand washing<\/strong> remain the best things you can do to prevent getting most viral respiratory diseases (the common cold, influenza, and the new coronavirus). Just being in the same room with a sick person is not that risky, but touching surfaces<\/strong> and objects in that room and then touching your face<\/strong> is a good way to catch one of these viruses. Note that hand washing studies suggest we generally neglect our fingertips<\/strong> (including the nails) and wrists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The best information available comes from CDC<\/a> and WHO<\/a> (which I consider the best source since it is not caught up in US political shenanigans). For up-to-date worldwide information download the most recent WHO Situation Report<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve annotated this NY Times graphic, rounding the estimates for COVID19 (aka the 2019 novel coronavirus) to 2% mortality and 2 people infected for every one who has the disease. What this suggests is the infection rate will be similar to a bad cold season, but unlike the common cold, a significant number of people … Continue reading “Thoughts on the Approaching COVID19 Pandemic”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[129,22,28],"tags":[468,469,466,470,467,465,471],"class_list":["post-8536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-medicine","category-science","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid19","tag-epidemic","tag-hand-washing","tag-pandemic","tag-public-health","tag-social-isolation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8536"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8558,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8536\/revisions\/8558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}