Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

> If this is over in June and 100,000 people died, what would we call this? It would just be another disease probably.

More like few millions in US alone, based on what happened in Italy which is more representative than China. Italy has >4% mortality rate last time I checked. And we talk about very well equipped and highly rated healthcare. I can't imagine this not having brutal effects on global economy.

Another point - unless we have proper fully working cure / vaccine, this ain't going anywhere. June ain't some magical time when virus decides to roll back because enough is enough. Southern hemisphere will keep the virus going on through our summer, so it will come back in autumn.

An additional point - this might be early to judge but it seems immunity is not gained after recovery, so re-infection is probable.

There are more points, like its high infection rate etc.




> And we talk about very well equipped and highly rated healthcare.

We also talk about a country in which 20%+ of the population is over 65 years old [0], compare that to China (11%) [1]

[0] https://www.indexmundi.com/italy/demographics_profile.html

[1] https://www.indexmundi.com/china/demographics_profile.html


This is completely debased. You don't have reliable info on recoveries, infections or death rate. Currently around <3000 people died in China to my info and yes, that number will increase unfortunately. While I think you should take it seriously, it is another thing to predict millions of dead people. It is a respiratory disease and yes, those can kill you.

> so re-infection is probable.

I have the info the virus is not inclined to mutate. But it is just too early to tell.


The lack of mutation is both good and bad. It means the virus is less likely to get worse, but also means the virus is less likely to mutate to a less lethal form that would likely still provide some immunity to the more lethal one. On the brightest side, it may mean that we're not going to see waves of new infection each year like we do from influenza.




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: