
Ask HN: Are we overreacting to coronavirus? - tarruda
Source [1]. Note that I don&#x27;t subscribe to conspiracy theories so I will focus only on non-political information. I hope someone one the field can fact-check the information presented and correct any interpretation mistakes on my part:<p>- The test that is currently used was not extensively validated and quickly accepted by WHO due to urgency. This raises the following questions:
  - Is it possible that we are seeing false positives, where people with flu-like symptoms are wrongly identified as having SARS-CoV-2?
  - Are we certain that the test is implemented correctly everywhere?<p>- To find infection&#x2F;death rates, are we doing tests on the whole population, or only on certain groups, such as people that went to hospitals feeling cold symptoms?<p>- Is it possible that infection rates are higher than normal because more people are going to hospitals (due to widespread panic), and thus get infected more easily than if they had treated common cold symptoms at home?<p>- Are the flu deaths increasing because of the coronavirus? Consider this:
  - In Germany, between 20000 and 30000 people die yearly from flu, mostly on winter.
  - Assume that in previous years we tested all seriously ill patients for coronavirus (which didn&#x27;t happen). In this scenario, where we tested everyone, it is expected that between 2000 and 3000 of the dead would also have a coronavirus (which doesn&#x27;t imply they died because of coronavirus).
  - Due to panic, more people are filling the hospital beds, possibly leaving the really sick without proper care, thus increasing deaths.
  - In Germany, there are currently 33 deaths attributed to coronavirus, nowhere near the expected number. Note that Germany has considerably more hospital beds than Italy [2].<p>[1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=p_AyuhbnPOI<p>[2] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thereader.mitpress.mit.edu&#x2F;flattening-the-coronavirus-curve-is-not-enough&#x2F;
======
tossitfarther
Early last week, one of the hospitals near me (NYC) had zero confirmed cases
but a couple of people who were exhibiting Covid-like symptoms bad enough they
required hospitalization.

On Thursday of last week, this hospital had their first several confirmed
positive cases. Keep in mind that in the early days of this, the criteria for
testing in the US has been "you are already very sick and you require
hospitalization for something with similar symptoms"

On Tuesday of this week, as tests became more available, that hospital had ~20
suspected and confirmed cases.

On Wednesday they were at 22 confirmed cases and 22 suspected cases where
people are sick enough to require hospitalization but test results haven't
come back yet.

Last week, the hospital was dealing with normal load and on standby should
this become a problem. In the space of a little over a week, they now have a
floor devoted to patients who are a) sick enough to require hospitalization
and b) have tested positive and another floor devoted to patients who are a)
sick enough to require hospitalization and b) are presumed to have this based
on symptoms presented, pending test results.

It's just one facility, but I personally cannot look at a single hospital that
had zero known cases last week, which now has two floors devoted to active
cases this week and comfort myself with, "It's fine, this is just the flu."

~~~
bbimbop
This guy knows what's up. Thank you.

------
javipas
I'm from Spain, one of the most exposed countries right now. At first you see
this as something distant, something that was happening in China as Ebola was
happening years ago on Africa.

It can't touch me.

A few days ago the state of alarm began over here. Remain at home, minimal
movement (just to go for groceries, pharma, the rest of retail businesses are
closed now). It felt closer, but still you feel safe. You're at home,
theoretically isolated.

And then you start hearing that people near you got sick and even die. One
friend's father died a couple days ago. Other relative has been confirmed with
covid-19 yesterday. More cases coming everyday. They are no longer points in a
chart. These are your people.

We are not overreacting. We reacted late.

Take care.

~~~
k__
This whole crisis is a test of healthcare systems.

Germany got hit very hard with infections, but also has a really low fatality
count. Spain only got 8% more infections but over a maginitude more deaths

Edit: Spain also has only half of the population of Germany, so it's probably
more like 16% more infections in relation to population.

~~~
b_t_s
It's a test of our healthcare systems that they can't possibly pass unless our
government and society pass their tests. Any country that fails to get the
general public sufficiently onboard to flatten the curve _will_ massively
overload their healthcare system no matter how great that healthcare system
is.

------
entee
No. Very simply, an extreme response is required here. The most recent UCL
study demonstrates that given everything we know about the virus, extreme
social distancing may not even be enough [1]. Worse, if we are successful, it
will look like we overreacted because the nature of exponential spread is that
if you act when you’re on the steep part of the curve you’re too late. If you
act beforehand, you never get to the steep part.

The test, while developed quickly, isn’t likely showing lots of false
positives. The nature of these tests is that they’re not too hard to quality
control. You know what they’re looking for (a particular set of RNA sequences)
so positive and negative controls are easy to make. In fact that’s why the CDC
test was rejected initially, there was a clear issue with the controls.

For hospital beds, people don’t just randomly end up in the ICU. Italian ICU
capacity is completely overwhelmed, if not this virus, why?

That said, hoarding groceries is counterproductive and an overreaction.
Otherwise, absolutely not, this is a terrible virus, we need to be careful.

[1] [https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-
ana...](https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-analysis/news
--wuhan-coronavirus/)

EDIT: Typo

~~~
thu2111
_Italian ICU capacity is completely overwhelmed, if not this virus, why?_

Being a truly evil Devil's advocate for a moment:

1\. Because it's not actually overwhelmed. See this discussion from 2 days ago
about a Reuters report where the head of ICU for Lombardy says nobody has been
turned away due to lack of beds:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22605144](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22605144)

2\. Because ICU demand expands to meet available capacity as nobody wants to
switch off life support and modern medicine always gives one more intervention
to try. Thus doctors are always describing their hospitals as overwhelmed the
moment demand increases even a little bit.

Hospitals being described as overloaded, patients being treated in tents and
doctors describing their wards as strained/at the edge of disaster/etc is not
something unique to COVID-19. Here is the same thing happening in 2018 in the
USA:

[https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-
patie...](https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patients/)

Here are some quotes. Remember, all this was Jan 2018 but it sounds like it
could have been written yesterday.

 _The 2017-2018 influenza epidemic is sending people to hospitals and urgent-
care centers in every state, and medical centers are responding with
extraordinary measures_

 _" We are pretty much at capacity"_

 _Tallia says his hospital is “managing, but just barely,” at keeping up with
the increased number of sick patients in the last three weeks. The hospital’s
urgent-care centers have also been inundated, and its outpatient clinics have
no appointments available_

 _The story is similar in Alabama, which declared a state of emergency last
week in response_

 _In California, which has been particularly hard hit by this season’s flu,
several hospitals have set up large “surge tents” outside their emergency
departments to accommodate and treat flu patients_

 _Nurses are being “pulled from all floors to care for them, " ... "Many
nurses have also become sick, however, so the staff is also short-handed."_

 _" More and more patients are needing mechanical ventilation due to
respiratory failure from the flu and other rampant upper respiratory
infections"_

[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5279685/Californi...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5279685/California-
hospitals-looks-like-flu-war-zone.html)

 _Flu drives hospitals into 'war zone' conditions: Tents on the street in
California, 'state of emergency' in Alabama, and Boston is using GATORADE to
plug shortage of IV drips_

Remember - all that was in 2018. The world didn't end. The exact same terms
and language are being used now.

Now, I'm not saying this case is the same as flu of 2018 in the USA. Clearly,
there are critical differences and this one _is_ much more serious. But how
much more serious is being muddled by the fact that our data is all useless
and so people fall back on testimony from doctors, which sounds extremely
dramatic, but there's a history of describing tough flu seasons in exactly the
same way.

In a way it makes sense. ICU capacity is expensive. It'd be weird to have lots
sitting idle all the time, unused, whilst other people were being switched off
life support.

~~~
jackjackk0
Thank your god you don't live in Bergamo (Italy) [1] right now and stop
writing about things you don't know, you are just disrespectful to those who
know better who won't write you here because they are either busy 14h/day
saving lives or just trying to survive.

[1] [https://www.businessinsider.com/video-tour-coronavirus-
icu-w...](https://www.businessinsider.com/video-tour-coronavirus-icu-ward-
bergamo-italy-worst-apocalyptic-2020-3?IR=T)

~~~
thu2111
I live a few hours from Bergamo. I'm writing these things anyway. Please don't
try and shut people down who are posting factual information by claiming it's
"disrespectful" \- disrespectful to whom? The medics I quoted?

The Business Insider article you link to is saying exactly the same things as
the articles I cite about what happened in the USA in 2018: makeshift wards,
extraordinary measures, more and more patients needing ventilation. That's
what it looks like when a lot of patients turn up sick with pneumonia at once.

Videos are dramatic but not enough to understand what's going on by
themselves. You realise that, I hope?

~~~
jackjackk0
You confirm you are completely oblivious to what is happening around you, good
for you. Even visual proof is not enough. Enjoy your "hospitals are not at
full capacity" fairy tale, maybe you are lucky enough to not need to find an
hospital. If you knew at least one person in the first line you would know
better. But please do keep reading your comorting fairy tales if that helps
you.

~~~
thu2111
You're reacting emotionally when what the world needs is cold rationalism.

As of Wednesday afternoon this week, Italian hospitals were not yet at the
point of turning people away:

[https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/19/italys-death-rate-reaches-
re...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/19/italys-death-rate-reaches-record-high-
hospitals-in-lombardy-struggle.html)

 _Medical facilities in Lombardy will “soon” be unable to help new coronavirus
cases, regional Gov. Attilio Fontana said Wednesday, as he urged everyone to
stay at home._

That was based on a quick search of English-language material. Perhaps there's
a more recent update from the last 48 hours where things have changed - I'd
love more recent info. But at the moment I'm seeing a lot of people who
clearly believe hospitals are turning people away en-masse already, and yet I
keep finding news stories where it's being officially denied by the relevant
health authorities. Are they all oblivious, living in a fairy tale too? If so,
isn't that a shocking scandal that needs to be talked about right now?

------
Schaulustiger
Regarding your question about if we might accidentally test for flu or other,
already existing corona virii:

This was a topic of discussion in yesterday's talk [1] with Dr. Drosten, a
virologist who played an important part in the development of the currently
used PCR test. He said that there were extensive studies done with hundreds of
samples from both flu patients and patients infected with other corona virii
and none returned a positive result. The only other positive results were from
corona virii that are special to certain animals (bats, some cows IIRC), but
none of those are present in humans. So the accuracy of our current PCR test
for SARS-CoV-2 seems to be extremely high.

[1] (transcript in German)
[https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/16-Coronavirus-Update-
Wi...](https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/16-Coronavirus-Update-Wir-brauchen-
Abkuerzungen-bei-der-Impfstoffzulassung,podcastcoronavirus140.html)

Here's a quick (and slightly condensed) translation of the relevant parts:
"There was a big validation study [for the PCR test]. We tested with a big
number of patient samples from patients with flu/cold diseases and other
corona viruses. Not once did we get a false positive. [...] It is true though
that [the current PCR test] would yield positive results against the old SARS
corona virus, but that hasn't been confirmed in a human for 16 years. And
theoretically, the test would give a positive result on some bat corona
viruses, but they do not affect humans."

~~~
graycat
It's easy to get a low rate of false positives: Just always report no virus
found.

So, we care about both false positives and false negatives. Dr. Brix said as
much recently.

~~~
Tomte
Prof. Drosten is the chief virologist at Berlin Charité.

I'm confident that somewhere in his medical education the concept of false
negatives came up, and I'm also certain that he doesn't word his answers in an
interview for the general public to the standards of the nitpicking HN
population.

~~~
thu2111
That's a bit weak though. Right now what the world needs more than anything is
precise, clear, accurate information. It's really hard to do that, I got
called on making a vaguely worded and misleading statement here on HN just the
other day. But then again it's not my job to make such statements. When it is,
I take more care than I do in this little box.

Why can't we ask for more?

~~~
graycat
> Right now what the world needs more than anything is precise, clear,
> accurate information.

Right: Among the things we need, good data is a biggie.

Part of that is what I've been addressing here: Test _quality_ , especially
for test results reported by the news media.

------
TYPE_FASTER
Well, so far judging by deaths / cases on plague.com, we're looking at 4%
fatality rate. The average seasonal flu fatality rate is 0.1%. The mortality
rate for H1N1 was 0.02%. For Ebola, the average mortality rate is around 50%.

China severely restricted travel and managed to keep the infection rate around
0.008% of their population. We're still in the early stages in the US, with
about 0.00269% of the population infected.

In the US, about 8% of the population gets the seasonal flu every year on
average. That's about 28 million people. Take 4% of that 28 million people and
we'd be looking at 1.12 million people dying from the flu every year if it had
the same 4% mortality rate that Covid19 has.

So sheltering in place to limit transmission and keep the number of cases low
could save many, many lives.

None of the above estimates take into account the risk we run of running out
of hospital beds and ventilators. That would increase the mortality rate.

~~~
enchiridion
Thank you for explaining.

Any idea what the mortality increase would be?

~~~
TheCoelacanth
10-15% of cases require hospitalization. The US has hospital beds for about
0.2% of the population, so possibly 10% or higher mortality rate.

~~~
gremlinsinc
To piggy back.. this gets really bad because you have the question: "How many
people need critical care per year, or in a given month". Now, how many of
these people die if there IS no critical care to give? No room in the inn so
to speak?

I'm sure they're working on jerryrigged work arounds like using schools and
hotels, but still it's not the same as a real ICU... plus it's highly possible
a lot of these people could come in with a heart attack or a car crash and get
COVID19, and die from the virus when their other injuries they would've
survived, or they might've even survived COVID19 by itself without the extra
ailments.

Not to mention, it's possible all other patients in hospital could end up w/
it if it's not contained well, and again same thing as above.

What about immune compromised patients, like Cancer patients who need chemo...
they could have to postpone treatment (not enough staff to administer) which
could cause them to die..or they could show up, get infected and die within 2
weeks from COVID19 + already weakened immune system....

How many people feel safe breaking quarantine to go give blood? We're having a
major blood shortage right now. They say it's safe to give, but pretty sure if
someone else was there or if the blood drawers are infected you'll come home
with it... There's no way they can guarantee you won't... So if the blood
shortage continues to worsen, how many lives will that kill as a result...

I mean you could go further and say some might starve, but I don't think we're
at that yet... but it's a possibility esp. w/ panic buying and supply chain
woes... but I think not till summer. There's going to be a major issue with
migratory workers who work on farms..so we might be short on crops and farm
goods this year.

Also according to scientists we need to social distance for an entire year at
the least... This could cause a lot of depression, anxiety, and suicide too.

~~~
enchiridion
That's a good point. I think the recently recovered corona patients have a
duty to give blood for this reason.

------
phaedryx
Depends on which "we":

The members of my community that got into a brawl over toilet paper at Costco:
Yes

The members of my family who have been sending funny videos of each other
because we're all stuck at home with kids: No

The members of my local gaming group that make sure to wipe down the table and
wash our hands before we play: No

...

Basically, I think it is a mixed bag. Yes, we should be cautious and mindful.
I agree that we don't usually put things in their proper perspective when
assessing threats.

------
salmon30salmon
Yes. The biggest issue is that we lack any idea regarding how infected the
population currently is, or was. We don't know if 25% of all Americans have
had a minor infection at this point and are less vulnerable. We don't know how
it hung around Washington State undetected for six weeks.

On the one hand, when dealing with the risks associated with a pandemic it is
wise to error on the side of caution, but as we go through this we learn more
and more how little we knew when we launched this panic campaign.

Until we have a reasonable sampling the entire population, claiming this is
the doomsday virus is incredibly dangerous. Shutting down the economy is
incredibly dangerous considering our lack of knowledge about this virus.

Incomplete information has spread like absolute wildfire on the internet, and
closures and overreactions fell like dominos as worst case scenarios were
leaked without context. It is maddening

~~~
bbimbop
You will likely regret saying this in about 5 days. It's already way too much.
Call anyone in NYC if they know of a first hand case. NYC is tracking toward
Italy more so than parts of China.

~~~
salmon30salmon
I work with, have family and have friends in NYC. A lot of the problems in NYC
are due to the restrictions on every day life, not the virus. Don't confused
the virus with the draconian restrictions we put in place. The latter are
having a much larger influence.

~~~
Rapzid
Those restrictions are a symptom of the virus too.

------
TheAlchemist
It depends - if we think nothing is off the table - including isolating older
people or doing war-time like strategies, then maybe we are overreacting.

But if the only cases we consider are traditionnal approaches - confinment vs
doing basically nothing, then the short answer must be no - if anything, we
are underreacting (by we, I assume you mean the West - EU and US).

I've tried to be smart about the numbers, which are definitely not rock solid
now, but just look at what happened in places that tried to underreact - Wuhan
(not their fault), Lombardy. Have you ever seen military trucks coming into a
city, during peace time, to move coffins out ? Here you go:
[https://twitter.com/guidosalva/status/1240555847849312256?s=...](https://twitter.com/guidosalva/status/1240555847849312256?s=20)

We can argue as long as we want about age structure etc, but this kind of
horror, definitely never happens unless there is something extremely unusual
(and deadly) happening.

------
acarp52
It's a problem that seems to be a lot like climate change:

It will be hard to objectively tell if we overreacted, because the actions
taken cause a lower impact than predicted.

But on the other hand, it will be pretty easy to tell if we underreacted: a
catastrophe worse than projected would mean we didn't take enough action.

It's so easy to be skeptical when the data is inconsistent - but it's
important to be open to new information and work to protect your community to
the best of your knowledge and ability.

~~~
WorldMaker
Yeah, it's hard to call anything an overreaction when a "proper" reaction will
in hindsight _look_ like an overreaction simply because it was effective.

~~~
chris1993
As exactly happened with Y2K

~~~
2rsf
There are many Y2K deniers, even though people that have actually seen the
code says it would have crashed and burned without all the hard work.

------
chrismeller
Overall I would have to say absolutely, yes. The number of infections doesn't
justify this level of panic, let alone the number of deaths. I realise there
is an element of "prevention" here, but far, far more people die of very
common things (flu, traffic accidents, smoking-related conditions, being
overweight, etc.) in the US alone every year, some of which are also 100%
preventable, than have died worldwide of coronavirus. Do we shut down borders
because of a flu outbreak? No, it's just expected. The same can be said for
any of the dozens of leading causes of death that exist in poverty-stricken
countries where things like water contamination causing diarrhea kill more
people than we could possibly imagine dying in the US.

I'm not saying that there haven't been some good things to come out of this
situation - people working from home and thereby saving gas, limiting
pollution, etc.; increased awareness of basic cleanliness practices,
particularly in some countries that are quite noticeably less fastidious than
the US generally is; actual tests of some of our response mechanisms (I mean,
you don't trust your backups unless you've used them...) - but the
extraordinary response of basically shutting down Europe is so far and away
over the top...

I don't pretend to understand _why_ people have freaked out like this, but I
suspect it's pretty much in line with why they freak out about anything:
they've been programmed to wait for the "next big thing" that is going to kill
us all by news, TV, movies; the news has, as usual, plastered everything
across the "front page" on a constant basis, essentially "hyping" it up; and
probably that on some deep psychological level we've all gotten a little
overwhelmed with technological advances and how quickly the world has become a
global market that is "always on", so we were unintentionally waiting for some
way to pull back and deal with ourselves for a while.

~~~
notacoward
> far, far more people die of very common things

More people die of those things _in a year_ than have died of COVID-19 _so
far_ but that's the wrong comparison. There's real science and math behind
predictions of a much higher toll which would make the comparison look very
different.

There's also an aspect of who has control over outcomes. People can protect
_themselves_ from various ills by eating right, exercising, not smoking, etc.
There's no connection to other people's actions or outcomes. With communicable
disease, the person who's not worried about their own outcome can cause the
literal death of other people who had no choice about being born with certain
medical conditions that made them more susceptible. You might feel you're
Living Right and you're at no risk yourself, but - as has been pointed out
many times but apparently not enough - It's Not Just About You. Your actions
are connected to others' outcomes. There's a _social_ responsibility to avoid
becoming a vector for infection.

~~~
chrismeller
I agree that we're not looking at a year's worth of data, but that was also
kind of the point... we're not looking at a year's worth of data.

If 97 people have died in the US so far... you've got a _long_ way to go, even
looking at an exponential growth rate, to even approach the top 10 causes of
death in the US. According to the CDC 47,000 people killed themselves in 2017
[1], and that's #10. Also 100% preventable.

You also have control over your own susceptibility and spread of something
like the flu or the common cold, but no one in the US ever wears a mask to
prevent that (though in other countries that is a common sight).

1:
[https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm)

Edit: It wasn't 8 people who have died, it was 97 according to the CDC. My
bad.

~~~
notacoward
> even looking at an exponential growth rate,

Do you know how exponential growth works? The exponent matters. A lot. There's
a big difference between 1% growth per week and 10% growth every day.
According to the actual math and models being used by epidemiologists, over
four million people could need ICU-level care for COVID-19.

[https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20200317.45791...](https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20200317.457910/full/)

Since we don't have anywhere near that many ICU beds, and there's an even more
acute shortage of ventilators, a high percentage of those people wouldn't get
the care they need and would therefore die - eclipsing even heart disease in
the list you cite. So no, measures to reduce that exponent are not
unreasonable. We need to reduce both the number of contacts people have per
day and the likelihood that each contact will lead to infection. Please study
some math beyond what you've only partially remembered from grade school.

> You also have control over your own susceptibility and spread of something
> like the flu or the common cold

Those are far less likely to reach a level where they require hospitalization,
let alone ICU-level care. Yes, they're preventable (not 100% BTW), but there's
no danger of affecting others by increasing strain on scarce hospital
resources, so it's not a very constructive comparison.

~~~
ykevinator
It's amazing how many epidemiologist don't understand the difference between
exponential and polynomial growth.

------
Yetanfou
I can only speak from 'our' perspective here in Sweden so don't shoot if you
don't agree but... in general I think people under-react rather than over-
react when it comes to handling the oncoming epidemic. The main problem is
that the disease is already causing an overload on the health care system in
parts of the country while the epidemic has just gotten started. If left
unchecked it will peak in about 2.5 months when close to half a million people
will likely be in need of hospitalisation with about 150.000 of them in need
of critical care. About 40.000 people will die given a mortality of 0.7% (as
measured in Korea) and a 70% fraction of the population being infected.

There are 520 IC places in the whole of Sweden.

Even if these numbers are overstated by a factor 10 - which is possible
although the SEIR-model gives even higher numbers (800.000 hospitalised,
200.000 in need of critical care) - it is clear that those in need of critical
care will most likely not get the help they need leading to an increased
mortality.

For a single individual the disease does not seem to be as large a threat as
it is being made out to be by some. For a society unused to see people die
from infectious disease it stands to be devastating. Either society will have
to accept that infectious disease can and will kill people when it is allowed
free reign or we'll have to do our best to make sure the limit the amount of
suffering due to loss of life, loss of quality of life, loss of income,
employment, economic potential and other factors as much as possible.

What is needed now is a comprehensive testing effort to find out how far the
infection has spread over the country. If it turns out a sizeable part of the
population already carries antibodies against SARS-CoV2 it will be clear that
the disease is not as much of a threat as it seems to be. Comprehensive
testing will also allow for the early isolation of infected people and will
help in limiting the load on the health care system.

------
helen___keller
I don't have the background to answer your questions, but even if I steelman
and assume the worst outcome here (issues with the test, issues with
epidemiology, that we're crowding out hospitals, that we're infecting via
hospitals), I would argue that we are still not overreacting:

In the original outbreak of wuhan, there could not have been overpreparation
because there was no preparation, the outbreak simply happened. So, we should
look at wuhan pre-citywide-quarantine to get a feel for what it would look
like if we chose to not "overreact", as originally there was no real "test"
being administered, cases were diagnosed by CT scans of lungs for pneumonia,
and there were not extreme imposed social distancing or population-wide
quarantine.

So, any issues we might have in the west, should not apply to the original
outbreak in wuhan. And in wuhan the casualties of the outbreak were on the
order of 1-5% (i think estimates varied a lot for some of the reasons you
list). In any case, it overloaded hospitals and a lot of people died.

If the infection reaches a broader population (the 'underreaction' scenario),
it suffices to say the death rate will be a MINIMUM of 1-5%, as obviously the
situation would be even worse with a large percentage of the population sick.
This would continue until the population reaches herd immunity, estimated
30-60% of population infected.

Thus, we can conclude 1-5% of that 30-60% of the infected population would
die, which in america ranges from about 1 million to nearly 10 million deaths.
This is far far far greater than the yearly flu outbreak. And that's assuming
that the rapid spread of the disease doesn't cause secondary effects through
deteriorating supply chains (who staffs grocery stores if 60% of the
population is home? who drives trucks to keep supply chains going? who works
the amazon fulfillment center?)

Thus, I would conclude that the penalties for unabated spread of the disease
are _so horrific_ that the only reasonable response is something that looks
like an overreaction: extreme social distancing, shutting down cities aside
from vital functions, etc.

Because atleast our groceries stores operate and our supply chains are
running.

~~~
thu2111
1% to 5% of _what_? This is the kind of statement that raises suspicions of
over-reaction.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/health/wuhan-
coronavirus-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/health/wuhan-coronavirus-
deaths.html)

As of yesterday the best data suggests a 1% fatality rate amongst confirmed
cases in Wuhan. Wuhan has 2169 confirmed deaths in a population of 11 million,
so if we speak of the casuality rate for the population it would be 0.019%. Is
that a lot? Well, it's the sort of level that's lost in the noise of regular
influenza.

 _Thus, we can conclude 1-5% of that 30-60% of the infected population would
die_

No, we can't conclude that. You're taking a death rate of a very selectively
chosen sample and then projecting it onto the entire population, which isn't
statistically valid. People keep making basic logic errors like this one,
which is what triggers questions like the OPs about possible over-reactions.

All the data we have is useless. Not a single stat has a level of accuracy
that would normally be accepted for scientific use. We don't know what the
infection rate is, which means we don't know how many people get sick and die,
we don't know even what the mortality rate is because in fact we don't even
have a globally agreed definition of COVID-19 mortality.

Italy examined their own death records and discovered that of all deaths
marked as caused by CV, only 2 appeared to have no pre-existing or underlying
health conditions. If that's true then SARS-CoV-2 is sort of like HIV. That
makes it very hard to establish precise definitions. If someone has been
battling a severe health problem for months, is very likely to die anyway,
they die, and then their blood showed they got SARS-CoV-2 two days before
dying - what was the cause of death? Health systems don't agree on how to
answer this question which makes comparing numbers between locations very
tricky. This is being floated as a possible explanation for the divergent
death rates between Germany and Italy.

 _who staffs grocery stores if 60% of the population is home?_

Here you're not using temporal reasoning. Why would 60% of the population be
at home simultaneously except via forced government fiat? Even if you assume
everyone has to stay at home until they get the disease (worst case scenario,
not implemented anywhere) people don't all get sick instantaneously, and once
recovered people can go back to work as they aren't a threat to anyone. Most
people recover within a week. So, to ask a question about how many people will
be out of the workforce requires discussion of timeframes and curve slopes.

Something to be aware of is that the "60-70% of the population will get it"
figures are based on a form of modelling that assumes everyone in the
population interacts with everyone else. That simplifies the maths but clearly
isn't close to being true.

 _Thus, I would conclude that the penalties for unabated spread of the disease
are so horrific that the only reasonable response is something that looks like
an overreaction_

And yet your post contains statistical and logical errors, which is why the
number of people questioning that sort of conclusion is going to be non-
trivial for the foreseeable future.

------
rland
I’m not really sure if we’re overreacting. But it sure seems like we are
entering this endeavor completely without a plan. We’re not going to be able
to stockpile food and furlough half the economy forever, and as soon as we
start coming out of hibernation, spread will just ramp right back up again.

I think the lack of leadership and foresight will likely cause thousands to
lose their lives and trillions in economic damage.

------
Grue3
>Are the flu deaths increasing because of the coronavirus?

In Japan influenza rates went way down because of the threat of coronavirus.
[1] It might actually save lives assuming it's contained at some point.

[1]
[https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/02/21/national/influe...](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/02/21/national/influenza-
wave-drastically-wanes-japan-amid-spread-coronavirus/)

------
pwinnski
1\. In the US, we test twice, and only with two positives do we say a person
is confirmed to have COVID-19. Before that, we say "probable COVID-19." So is
it used correctly everywhere? Impossible to say. In the US, yes it is.

2\. In Korea, yes. In the US, no. Other places, mostly no.

3\. Unlikely. We have a bigger issue with people _not_ going to hospitals, and
therefore spreading the disease. Korea went from 30 cases to 8000 cases
because of one such person. [0]

4\. More likely is that flu deaths will decrease because people are taking
precautions that they normally do not. We should take flu much more seriously
than we do, and the same precautions we take against COVID-19 are effective
against flu.

Overall, you seem to be focused on hospitals, but here in the US, that's just
not something people rush to, due to expense. Here in the US, at least, we are
not overreacting. It may not be possible to overreact! What I mean is: If we
have exactly the right level of reaction, it will look like overreaction in
hindsight, so we can't even know whether we overreacted.

[0] [https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-HEALTH-SOUTHKOREA-
CLUSTER...](https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-HEALTH-SOUTHKOREA-
CLUSTERS/0100B5G33SB/index.html)

------
Jamesbeam
Says

"Note that I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories so I will focus only on
non-political information."

Spreads youtube Video of a guy who didn't even realize that he made an
impostor his second in command leading a public health office in Germany.

Source:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gert_Postel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gert_Postel)

Article: Why Wolfgang Wodarg's Statements have little to do with science. By a
well respected fact checking and investigative journalism group.

[https://correctiv.org/faktencheck/hintergrund/2020/03/18/cor...](https://correctiv.org/faktencheck/hintergrund/2020/03/18/coronavirus-
warum-die-aussagen-von-wolfgang-wodarg-wenig-mit-wissenschaft-zu-tun-haben) (
Translate with Google Translate )

OP is a great example of how a disinformation campaign by conspiracy theorists
works. They make you believe they have credible sources you can rely on they
base their arguments on until you start digging and find out the stuff above
and that this is the same guy who voted against a Child Predator law in
Germany and is heavily politically and financially involved in spreading the
bullshit he does.

~~~
thu2111
_this is the same guy who voted against a Child Predator law in Germany_

What does that have to do with anything? It's really better to leave stuff
like that out if you're attacking someone's credibility. Bringing in unrelated
political points phrased on obviously inflammatory ways just makes it sound
like you're got a partisan axe to grind and would criticise the guy no matter
what he did.

~~~
Jamesbeam
The OP was talking about non-political opinion of said "Expert". But
everything said "Expert" did in the past was politically motivated, including
voting against a Child Predator law to generate attention for himself and to
promote his other weird thesis, like the "Fake pandemic" stuff.

In no way, form or shape did I say he voted against it because he's a child
predator. It was to show that he is a politician that is frequently trying to
generate controversy to push his personal "Fake Pandemic" agenda.

So of course it has to do something with the topic.

------
astrophysician
I mean, _some_ people are overreacting about _some_ aspects of this, but the
main thing is:

\- the fatality rate for covid is high. People make a valid point about how we
don’t know the “actual” (unbiased) fatality rate, that may be hard to
estimate, but at this point it’s more or less irrelevant —- we already know
for a fact that it is high enough to overwhelm the healthcare system, as is
_already happening_ elsewhere. We’re not going to wake up one day and say “oh
oops, the fatality rate is only 0.03%, oopsies sorry everyone go back to
work”, it’s already past that point.

\- because it will overwhelm our healthcare system, countries have no choice
but to impose extreme measures to slow the spread, which will have huge
economic effects depending on how long we can stand doing this. Ideally until
there is a solution to the problem of inundated hospitals, whatever that looks
like, and however long that takes.

\- people hoarding resources or thinking this is the apocalypse are likely
overreacting. People are panicking, which will slowly stop once people adjust
to their new temporary reality, but whether people are “overreacting” has a
different answer for every person.

\- the impact on the economy is going to be severe, even with trillions of
dollars in stimulus. The restaurant/entertainment industries are trillions of
dollars in size, so this will hurt (it is already hurting) and it will put
many people out of business.

So....it depends on exactly what you mean by overreacting. If people who are
really ok are filling hospital beds, then once things get bad they will be
sidelined in favor of serious cases. So for now I don’t see how that’s an
issue but maybe it is?

In summary: panic is usually the wrong response to anything but this is
incredibly serious...

~~~
enchiridion
I'm not so sure about the out of business part of it. Temporary closing sure.

They may have to take on additional debt to get started again, but there will
be huge demand once restrictions are lifted.

~~~
astrophysician
Yea agree about a demand surge when this is over, but I don’t think most
businesses will be able to weather this well. Margins are usually pretty
tight. A business already struggling will simply close rather than take out
more debt amounting to the cost of months of revenue that they will have to
figure out how to repay (even when rates are very low). It will hurt and it
will hurt big time if this goes on for longer. So politicians are faced with
an impossible choice: tank the economy with social restrictions or don’t and
millions of people die and the hospitals are overrun, which will likely have
its own economic impact.

That’s a ramble, but basically I sincerely hope your optimism is correct here,
but I am much more pessimistic. I think we will get through this but at a huge
economic cost.

------
rossdavidh
The answer to your question is almost certainly, "yes". Any look at the
grocery stores will confirm this.

Unfortunately, exactly in which ways we are overreacting, is trickier. It is
possible for us to be overreacting, but Covid-19 still to be a serious
problem.

One could also argue that, since we lose 25-60,000 people a year to flu in the
U.S. alone, we were underreacting before. If we lost 25,000 people to a new
threat, we would consider that appalling. It may be that we are overreacting
to this because it's a new threat, but perhaps we were underreacting before?

Probably, it is some of both.

~~~
mcnamaratw
But if the fatality rate is 20 times higher than the flu (I don't know), and
if deaths due to the flu were 50,000 per year, then there could be 1,000,000
deaths due to this disease.

Maybe the appropriate reaction to 1,000,000 deaths is different than the
appropriate reaction to 25,000 deaths.

------
loopz
Nobody is immune to this from before. Everyone might contract this at the same
time.

We don't know exactly what this is, or what it may become. The infection rates
are much higher than flu.

Most countries aren't as prepared as some Asian countries that've had to deal
with such situations before.

After short time with exponential spread, countries will shut down anyway, and
then it's too late to avoid becoming Italy.

It's prudent to stop or slow this down, until we've had time to prepare and
learn more about the disease.

Nobody knows anything for sure in this situation.

We should've already prepared for this eventuality anyway.

------
forkexec
Italy has a much better healthcare system than the US, and they had about 500
people die today. The US is going to be really hit hard.

I've read some of the literature on modeling the outbreak. In 45 days, the US
will have no ICU beds available, basically no emergency healthcare available
as it will be completely overwhelmed, and anywhere from 1-10 million will die
over the successive pandemic waves within the next 18-24 months. Vaccine/s,
prophylaxes and treatment protocols, in large numbers, are essential.

One of the largest dangers will be the premature reopening and lifting of
shelter orders because the virus will not magically go away, and then people
will abandon sensible precautions and cause a new pandemic wave that will kill
untold thousands. Complacency and irresponsibility will kill many people.

Also, the Spring Break kids and the governor in Florida are beyond ignorant,
they're reckless, selfish and liabilities to everyone else. One coastal
Florida county's health department wasn't testing ILI patients to avoid
coronavirus statistics, and preventing doctors from testing patients.

This isn't something to underestimate, because to do so would gamble your and
your family's lives. Furthermore, young people are by far the greatest
spreaders and also at risk for developing critical symptoms.

------
jerome-jh
There is no black or white answer to this. It depends mostly on the number of
deaths a given government is OK to tolerate. It seems China, South Korea &
European countries decided to have the least possible deaths.

Now what would be the number of fatalities if we'd let things go? For the
reasons you mentioned the fatality rate is very hard to even estimate.

Italy had 4000 deaths due to Covid-19 in 4 weeks which is bad enough. As a
comparison France had 8100 death due to flu during the 2018-19 winter, and
30000 deaths in 2 weeks due to a heat wave in 2003. Would the Covid-19 overrun
those figures with no containment measures. My estimation is that it would.

For Germany: it turns out the virus has currently spread between younger
people, explaining the low number of fatality for now. Maybe there are more
cautious as well.

------
cassianoleal
I've found this thread useful in trying to answer this very question:

[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1239975682643357696.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1239975682643357696.html)

~~~
mondoshawan
That study is actually quite myopic, and focuses entirely on non-
pharmapseutical treatment. It specifucally ignores most of the findings we
have now:

    
    
      - 25-50% infected show no symptoms
      - herd immunity is ignored
      - Non-vaccine treatments are ignored
      - Reinfection is assumed, yet we have no data yet because there havent been any reinfections yet
      - It flatly assumes full quarantine is possible at home
    

Definitely read the study and weigh your own data and conclusions with these
points in mind rather than using his summary.

This guy just got scared from it, but he's just a social science historian,
not a doctor or microbiologist.

~~~
thu2111
The Imperial 'study' has other problems too. It assumes NHS capacity is
absolutely constant and won't change at all, not even in an entire year. Yet
apparently the NHS already doubled the number of available beds.

What kind of study assumes capacity won't change at all in response to the
sort of actions now being seen?

------
zabana
Can somebody with field expertise explain this to me:

The mortality rate is said to be between 3 and 5%. Experts are also saying
that it does not draw an accurate picture of the situation because people
aren't being tested nearly as much as should be required.

So the question then becomes, why aren't we ramping up tests among the general
population to get a better idea of who to prioritise ? Surely if we know who
needs urgent treatment and who doesn't we don't have to freeze the whole
economy and put everyone in lockdown ?

What am I missing ? Am I being too naive ?

~~~
sjg007
We don't have enough biochemical reagents and kits to scale up the test.
That's why you need the private companies to come online. Testing capacity
should increase in the next 2 weeks though so maybe then they will get the
economy moving again. Jack Ma is personally sending over 500k test kits but I
am not sure if they are FDA approved etc... or when they will arrive.

------
rguzman
it's a bad model to think of measures responding to covid as scalars. they
have magnitude and direction.

everything below is me spitballing -- weakly held:

my thinking is that we should err on the side of caution, which means that if
anything, in terms of flattening the curve, we haven't done enough, yet, but
there is also that any it takes ~1-2 weeks to see the effects of any one
action. once the curve is flattening, i think we ought to relax on this front
as to minimize the economic damage.

in terms of structural changes to medical system (think FDA approvals), i
think that we're also under-reacting, but i don't know enough to really say.

in terms of stimulating the economy, i think we've also under-reacted so far,
though the latest bills look a bit promising on this front and i think if they
pass they are of about the right magnitude.

------
sendbitcoins
Currently CFR for 20-44 year olds is less than 1%, but the troubling bit is up
to 20% will need hospitalization, and what if the hospitals are full?

"A new CDC analysis of more than 2,400 cases of COVID-19 that have occurred in
the United States in the last month shows that between 1 in 7 and 1 in 5
people between the ages of 20 and 44 in the sample of those who are confirmed
cases require hospitalization"

[https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/488325-cdc-data-
show-c...](https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/488325-cdc-data-show-
coronavirus-poses-serious-risk-for-younger-people)

~~~
tmaly
I think you might have read that wrong. Article says 1 in 5 for those between
45 and 65

“The early estimates show that a fifth to a third of those between the ages of
45 and 65 who contract the disease are hospitalized.”

------
allears
Epidemiology and virology are serious sciences. This stuff has been studied,
and studies confirmed in the real world, for a very long time now. If those
guys are worried, Imma gonna shelter in place and do my best to follow other
recommendations. But that's only part of the real problem, which is that our
modern society is a house of cards that depends on every part working well,
and even then it breaks down all the time. Whatcha gonna do when most parts
break down? I guess we're going to find out. I don't think it will be full-on
Mad Max (or rather I hope not). But wishful thinking ain't gonna cut it.

------
evanmoran
It will be hard to tell if we're overreacting if we respond correctly, I
think. The exponential nature of it means being earlier is _much_ better with
all countermeasures (social distancing, mass testing, vaccines) and any
success that slows the rate of growth will make it seem many orders of
magnitude smaller than it was. So if the US tops out at 20K deaths for
Covid-19 it will look more like the flu in size, but in reality the smaller
total was caused by the extraordinary measures being taken.

As for hospitals and increased infection rates, here in Seattle I've heard
that people are calling ahead and arranging where to go. They are also waiting
in their cars while being checked into hospitals so they don't even use public
waiting areas. Pretty smart, and definitely not a panicked response!

------
mmmmmyumyum
What I find concerning is that in Germany at least one expert gets put into
one basket with Conspiracy Theorists, who just says: "From looking at the
numbers, we don't yet see anything out of the ordinary compared to other
years." Although he's probably correct.

------
dmarchand90
No. In the US alone more people may die from covid19 than from any other
single event ever. Global deaths may exceed world war 2. For young healthy
people, yes, things will be fine, but we are looking at millions dying well
before their time.

In Italy death rates are 5x beyond normal. They are not even able to bury all
the bodies at this time the mortality rate is so high.

Angela Merkel, who rarely gives speeches, has said this is the greatest
challenge to Germany since the second world war. And Germany has been through
a lot.

Look, even Donald Trump, who has every economic and political incentive to
downplay this is calling this a catastrophe.

[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1239975682643357696.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1239975682643357696.html)

[https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/angela-merkel-
nails-...](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/angela-merkel-nails-
coronavirus-speech-unlike-trump.html)

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/19/generation-
has...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/19/generation-has-died-
italian-province-struggles-bury-coronavirus-dead)

~~~
chrismeller
Umm, no? According to the CDC, 83,500 people died of diabetes in 2017 [1], and
that's not even remotely the top cause (heart disease at almost 650k).

According to the last stats I saw, 8 people have died in the US of corona so
far... [2]

[1]:
[https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm)
[2]:
[https://liveupdate.world/coronavirus/m/en/](https://liveupdate.world/coronavirus/m/en/)

Edit: I'm not going to bother responding to all the edits, though at the
moment they haven't proven anything different. Edit 2: It was pointed out that
the source I used for the "8 deaths" was incorrect - it was 8 new deaths,
there have been 97 total according to the CDC. My bad, but I think my point
still stands regardless.

~~~
pwinnski
Odd how you switch from the reputable CDC to whatever "liveupdate.world" is.
There have been 97[0] reported COVID-19 deaths in the US as of yesterday.

That said, "all causes ever" is ridiculous. Even worst-cases scenarios[1] put
COVID-19 as the potential third cause of death in the US.

UPDATE: I think you weren't reading your own source well. There are +10 "new
deaths" since an unspecified time, but that site is reporting 160 deaths
overall.[2] I don't know how that's sourced, though, so I would be leery of
trusting it, even though it makes a stronger case than the CDC.

[0] [https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-
updates/case...](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-
updates/cases-in-us.html)

[1]
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/16/upshot/corona...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/16/upshot/coronavirus-
best-worst-death-toll-scenario.html)

[2] [https://liveupdate.world/coronavirus/p/en/official-corona-
vi...](https://liveupdate.world/coronavirus/p/en/official-corona-virus-totals-
in-usa/?t=1584630062)

~~~
chrismeller
liveupdate.world was posted on HN a couple of days ago. The numbers of cases
have been accurate according to the other sources I've checked, but I admit I
have not really evaluated the number of deaths because the country I live in
right now hasn't had any. That is my mistake, thanks for pointing it out.

That said, comparing actual numbers against a "worst-case scenario" is also
apples and oranges. 97 people in a country of somewhere between 325 and 330
million people... if my admittedly poor math skills are correct, that is about
0.00002%. Yes, that's in roughly a month, but even exponentially it _could_ be
worse than cancer, but there is no evidence to suggest it _will_ be thus far.

------
biolurker1
Have you seen the foto of the convoy of military trucks with corpses out of
Bergamo, Italy?

------
gremlinsinc
I think if anything...we're under-reacting. Which is why we'er over-reacting
now...trying to stop a dam AFTER it's blown to shreds, instead of stopping the
bomb before it went off.

------
Zardoz84
Well, with Madrid hospitals very near of collapsing and a death tool around
1000 persons, I think that I can say that we aren't overreacting.

~~~
zabana
but how do these numbers compare to general flu fatality rates ?

~~~
HarHarVeryFunny
Why do people keep wanting to compare this to the flu? It's a completely
random choice of comparison. Flu is caused by the influenza virus, COVID-19 is
caused by the SARS-CV2 virus - a coronavirus closely related to the SARS-CV
virus that caused SARS.

I guess if you are politically motivated then choosing a random non-scary
disease like Flu to compare it to makes sense, but one might as well (perhaps
with more justification) compare it to SARS and than panic and say "OMG it's
already killed way more people than SARS!".

Rather than comparing COVID-19 to anything else, what really makes sense is to
listen to the infectious disease experts (not politicians), and follow what's
happening in other countries.

~~~
zabana
It does not change the fact that there are other viruses which are far more
deadly than SARS-CV2.

Should we go into full lockdown everytime there's an outbreak ? This is a very
legitimate question to ask.

~~~
HarHarVeryFunny
That depends on what you mean by deadly .. percentage of deaths among people
to get it, or absolute number of people who are likely to die from it.

SARS-CV2 may not have the % kill rate of SARS-CV1, or other nasties like
Ebola, etc, but it has potential to kill a LOT of people due to it's specific
nature:

\- Many infected people are asymptomatic, so spread it unknowingly

\- It has a fairly long incubation period, so even those that _will_ show
symptoms (allowing them to be isolated) don't initially

\- Symptoms may be mild and confused with those of other diseases (such as
flu!), resulting in failure to diagnose, hence allowing spread

\- The percentage death rate appears nothing to be complacent about. The
Princess Diamond "experiment" (with 100% testing) indicates about a 1% death
rate (10x that of flu), while in Italy it's running at about 10% of detected
cases.

\- This is a novel virus to which we have no immunity. If it's still around
next year things may be better (and better yet if we have a vaccine), but this
year it'll be bad if not managed

Apparently what caused Trump to eventually take this seriously was an Imperial
College, UK report indicating that "do nothing" would result in a couple of
million deaths in USA.

Of course it's a legitimate question to ask if the cure is worse than the
disease, but it's both politically and morally impossible not to act when you
_know_ you could save millions of lives.

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/coronavirus-us-
uk...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/coronavirus-us-uk-trump-
boris-johnson-covid-19-response-science-paper-a9407946.html)

------
hncensorsnonpc
Yes, absolutely.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ohO8eAwi_po](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ohO8eAwi_po)

~~~
solipsism
You're posting a video by a guy (Ben Swann) who deals in 9/11 and Sandy Hook
conspiracy theories, and who is an anti-CDC antivaxxer?

------
runawaybottle
Why is Italy’s curve not like South Korea? They under-reacted. We’ll know who
under reacted based on the curves.

------
vidanay
'If it looks like you're overreacting, you're probably doing the right thing.'

-Dr. Anthony Fauci

------
lurquer
The thing about over-reacting is that you never think you are over-reacting.

------
shartshooter
Like anything as complex as a pandemic the answer is, it depends.

Are we overreacting? That depends on what your definition is on how to react
to a pandemic. On one hand we don't freak out over influenza in the same way.

Let's look at it this way: Influenza('19-'20) has a projected
hospitalization:death ratio between 3.2% and 15%[1].

hospitalizations: 370,000 – 670,000 deaths: 22,000 – 55,000

COVID-19: \- As of March 16, a total of 4,226 COVID-19 cases had been reported
in the United States \- 508 (12%) patients known to have been hospitalized[2]
\- 108 (21%) deaths from COVID have occurred in the US[3]

This means about 21% of those who are hospitalized in the US have died from
COVID.

It's not only significant, but significantly higher than influenza.

We should be reacting to this: social distancing, monitoring symptoms and
avoiding the ER and visiting doctors unless we have an emergency.

Those are things everyone can work to do although there are some folks who
can't distance themselves socially(doctors, firefighters, restaurant workers,
etc) and it's important the rest of us do our best to support them.

Just like some folks are allergic to vaccines, it's critical those of us that
are able to get vaccines to protect those with compromised immune systems or
that are unable to get the vaccine.

In short: We're not overreacting, if anything the data shows we're
underreacting.

[1] - [https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-
season-e...](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-
estimates.htm) [2] -
[https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm)
[3] - [https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/coronavirus-disease-
cov...](https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/coronavirus-disease-
covid-19-latest-news-2020-03-17/)

------
RedBeetDeadpool
Does having more toilet paper than usual help during a virus outbreak? no. Are
we overreacting? yes.

------
tarruda
Why is this post flagged?

~~~
robjan
Because it's just a series of loaded questions. If you have already drawn
conclusions then why ask the question in the first place.

~~~
tarruda
Can you please quote me where I'm drawing conclusions?

------
graycat
Wondered about such things and just looked into the subject.

In simple terms, here in the US, we only have a little data. E.g., apparently
a big fraction of the data we have closely relevant to these questions is in a
US CDC report

"Severe Outcomes Among Patients with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) —
United States, February 12–March 16, 2020"

that is, to essentially the present and only 4 days more than a month.

Can see the report with a lot of words with actual numerical values at

[https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm)

and, then, can see their graph of hospitalizations, ICU admissions, and deaths
by age in Figure 2 at

[https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm#F1_down](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm#F1_down)

For how many people are _infected_ , tough to know before we test a good
simple random sample with a good test. From some of what Dr. Brix said
recently, our test(s) "amplifies* the genetic code and sequences that.

If I understand correctly, the _amplification_ is via the PCR where From
Google,

"Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a method widely used in molecular biology
to rapidly make millions to billions of copies of a specific DNA sample
allowing scientists to take a very small sample of DNA and amplify it to a
large enough amount to study in detail. PCR was invented in 1983 by Kary
Mullis."

So, the test is not trivial, is some microbiology that, say, before 1983 would
have seems impossible.

Next Dr. Brix has indicated that the US is very careful about the rates of
false positives and false negatives of the tests they use.

Still, for now, apparently we don't know how many people in the US are (or
have been) infected.

But from the CDC data above, we have some okay data (numbers are still small
for accurate statistical estimates) by age of the fraction of hospital
admissions with the virus that got into an ICU and then the fraction that
died.

Considering the US population over 65, how big is that?

Uh, from Google search

"US population over 65"

get

"49.2 million

In the United States, the population age 65 and over numbered 49.2 million in
2016 (the most recent year for which data are available). They represented
15.2% of the population, about one in every seven Americans."

So, the US has to try hard to stop the spread of the virus or, ballpark, the
US is looking at about 50 million citizens (a) nearly all of whom would get
the virus and (b) a significant fraction of whom would die if they are like
the people in the data who got the virus and were admitted to a hospital.

Net, bottom line, if extrapolate from that CDC data, then the US has to be
careful or a _lot_ of people over 65 could die:

In more detail, from the reference with the words,

"This first preliminary description of outcomes among patients with COVID-19
in the United States indicates that fatality was highest in persons aged =85,
ranging from 10% to 27%, followed by 3% to 11% among persons aged 65–84 years,
1% to 3% among persons aged 55-64 years, <1% among persons aged 20–54 years,
and no fatalities among persons aged =19 years."

Or, it could be > 3% dead of people over 65.

So, 3% dead of 50 million would be 1.5 million. If want to use the 10% number
in the CDC text, then that would be 5 million dead.

So, hurry up step #1 is to slow the spread of the virus by a lot of social
distancing and hand washing.

Hurry up step #2 is look for cures by (a) trying old drugs to see if any are
effective against the virus, (b) get some antibodies from some people already
cured from the virus and see if those antibodies can be the basis of a cure,
(c) starting with the microbiology, e.g., the molecular geometry, of part of
the virus, try to construct an antibody.

Step #3 -- ASAP get a safe and effective vaccine and give nearly everyone a
shot.

In case #1 to #3 happen too slowly, do #4, get hospitals ready for lots more
patients.

Unlike some other diseases, some good news about this virus is that everyone
who gets the virus can transmit it for only a few weeks.

So, in simple terms, if the world would be 100% effective at social distancing
for a few weeks, then the world would be free of the virus! And if the world
is close to 100% effective, then the world will still be free of the virus
_soon_!

------
ykevinator
Yes, we could have mandated gloves masks and sanitizer for schools and food
service, etc, implemented temperature taking for airports, schools, etc, but
due to the total vacuum of any leadership or policy, we reverted to panic
mode.

------
sergiotapia
Yes we are. I want you to keep this fact in mind: We don't know how many
people are infected. We only the number from people who go in to get checked.
For all you know there's a ton of people with a slight flu that are now fine.
My son and myself had a pretty rough cough and fever Feb 30. Could that have
been the chinese virus? We don't know. Extrapolate.

Based on everything I've read there's two schools of thought:

1\. Let the virus take hold. Save the economy, let God sort out the
vulnerable.

2\. Quarantine and contain. Save the vulnerable, life-support the economy
until the virus dies out.

US and others are doing #2.

England is doing #1.

We'll see how that plays out.

~~~
gaoryrt
I feel offended as a Chinese when you call it 'Chinese virus'.

I think you were blaming Chinese people for whatever reason, even you didn't
mean to.

You don't want to lose your family or friends, or suffering in economic
recession.

We don't want it too.

~~~
sergiotapia
That's ridiculous, we call it the chinese virus just like the spanish flu was
called "spanish flu". It's called that because of it's place of origin.

~~~
HarHarVeryFunny
I'm not sure anyone knows where the "Spanish" Flu originated, but it may in
fact have the US. It was certainly spread by US troops. The only reason it is
called "Spanish" Flu is because it happened during WW I and neutral Spain was
the only country reporting it in the press, as opposed to US, UK, etc which
were censoring the news so as not to look weak during wartime.

