
The Virus - rloomba
https://blog.samaltman.com/the-virus
======
all_blue_chucks
If too many people get this simultaneously we will overwhelm the healthcare
system and this will switch from tragedy to horror. Everyone please do
everything you can to avoid catching and spreading this until we have enough
testing to track this and respond effectively.

~~~
dnautics
While simple actions o prevent spread are probably not unreasonable (why
aren't we doing these every flu season)? I think the scale of horror is
grossly misperceived. For example, It's most likely that the scale of death
from covid-19 will be at least one, if not two orders of magnitude lower than
annual vehicular deaths in the us.

~~~
charliemil4
For everyone else, this is pegging Covid-19 deaths to ~36,000 [0]

(was curious)

[0] [https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-
statistics/detail/state...](https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-
statistics/detail/state-by-state)

~~~
Thorrez
More like 360-3600 (dnautics said 1-2 orders of magnitude lower than vehicle
deaths).

~~~
randallsquared
...and there are 3500 recorded deaths so far from COVID-19, so we've very
likely already exceeded this estimate as of March 7, 2020.

~~~
mstolpm
Please don't mix national and worldwide numbers: WHO estimates 1,350,000
traffic related death worldwide [1]. That said, every single loss of life is a
tragedy by itself.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-
related_death_rate)

------
ronyfadel
> Although I still hope things will go differently, the experts I’ve spoken to
> think we are likely to face a global tragedy—hundreds of thousands of deaths
> from Covid-19.

Even if it’s Sam Altman writing this, I wish he were more scientific instead
of appealing to an anonymous authority.

------
remote_phone
I don’t think global traffic will decrease after this. It will keep on
increasing after this downturn. To suggest people won’t travel unnecessarily
is absurd as saying people won’t go out to restaurants post-covid-19. But
restaurants will definitely get rocked by this.

The question is how will supply chains change. Will Apple really stick all
their eggs on China again or will they change strategies. It probably depends
on how much it costs them, ie its easier to keep everything in China and pay
downtime costs when a new virus hits. Luckily Tim Cook is an expert in supply
chains so he is perfectly positioned for this. Other companies probably aren’t
and a few will make the wrong decision.

------
patrickaljord
> I expect society will shift to a new normal pretty fast. Some of these
> elements—e.g., much less business travel, much less handshaking, much more
> handwashing—I expect to just stick. Some others—e.g., people working from
> home all of the time—I expect to not stick.

Why would people working from home not stick? Of all the enumerated changes,
this one seems like the most likely to stick. At least for any worker that has
no direct contact with clients needed, going to an office seems to be not that
useful and a waste. As a remote worker myself for more than 10 years, I don't
really see his point here. Anyone?

~~~
detaro
> _Why would people working from home not stick?_

The assumption behind it sticking seems to be that WFH is so obviously better
if you just try it you'll be convinced. While I think there's some truth to
that (=people objecting to it without actual experience), many companies are
going to jump into large-scale WFH badly prepared now, so it could pan out
either way. Turning a company remote is a culture shift.

------
jger15
Similar outlook expressed by Naval Ravikant recently as well:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0bPSseOlMc&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0bPSseOlMc&feature=youtu.be)

------
MarkMc
A few things to consider:

\- What is the chance that we develop an effective vaccine in say 6 months? In
18 months? (I'd love to see this question tackled by the Good Judgement
project [1])

\- Singapore appears to be doing a good job of controlling the spread of the
virus. Perhaps they will soon require all travellers to provide documentation
of a negative covid19 test result before entry to Singapore?

\- How many _fewer_ flu deaths will result from changes to travel and hygiene?

[1] [https://goodjudgment.com/](https://goodjudgment.com/)

------
xorfish
There are quite a few universal vaccines in the works. The window for a truly
horrific pandemic is closing.

[https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/challenge/ending-
pandemic-t...](https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/challenge/ending-pandemic-
threat-grand-challenge-universal-influenza-vaccine-development)

~~~
ashildr
So this is the plausible worst case - unfortunately I see no reason why it
should happen differently if we don‘t manage to keep R0 way lower for a while
than it currently seems.

It‘s growing exponentially, so one week we‘ll still have a working healthcare
system, the next week it will be overwhelmed by the low percentage of people
needing O2 or breathing support for a few weeks.

We‘ll improvise and then there will be next week with a double number of
cases. And a further diminished number of healthy people working in health
care.

Then our healthcare system will just collapse and those people will die that
would otherwise have recovered after a few weeks. It‘s a combination of
exponential growth of infections and accumulating numbers of people who need
treatment for a while.

As I understand this about is the current situation in Iran, it just happened
earlier there.

We‘ll try a lot, maybe find a way of better treatment to mitigate this a
little. This will happen until mid april, next year we‘ll have a vaccine,
maybe.

Oh, and this is what I fear for my country. We have public healthcare without
copay, you can’t be layed off for being sick and if you’re sick (or
quarantined) you’ll still be payed.

This is going to be a wild, depressing ride and it will come ‚suddenly‘.

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TaupeRanger
Is this a contest for how to convey the least amount of useful information in
the space of 1 blog post? Why even waste the time? Just say "it's probably
bad" and move on. I'm willing to bet you have little to no idea what cascading
effects are impacting treasury yields. It's just a finance news talking point.

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celerrimus
Nonsense, classic FUD

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justicezyx
How can a investor give advices on impact of a virus that is new?

~~~
neonate
It's not advice. It's an opinion piece.

~~~
throwsprtsdy
The piece does contain one bit of advice, "young healthy people should try to
avoid getting Covid-19 for as long as possible."

------
tristanj
> _hundreds of thousands of deaths from Covid-19_

I find that a severe underestimate. Barring a miracle medical cure, given the
death rates we've seen so far the number of deaths will be in the tens of
millions.

It's not hard to estimate the number of deaths with a spreadsheet
[https://i.imgur.com/e86IcaK.png](https://i.imgur.com/e86IcaK.png)

~~~
lottin
A high fatality rate skewed towards the old could end the pension crisis.

