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Two points against this general "but the flu" argument: An October 2019 novel Coronavirus simulation by Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, World Economi

by themgt 7y ago

Two points against this general "but the flu" argument: An October 2019 novel Coronavirus simulation by Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, World Economic Forum, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation [1][2], projected 65 million dead and widespread knock-on economic and societal problems during 18 months of pandemic. Not that this is a likely outcome for nCoV-2019 (which is likely less lethal than the imaginary virus), but it's worth understanding SARS-like viruses can be significantly more serious than the flu. Secondly, the flu is "baked in the cake" in our general medical and societal infrastructure. A novel virus will be additive to flu infections and even at similar rates of infection/death could cause a noticeable impact. As an analogy, 1.25 million people die in road crashes each year, but if some catastrophic, widespread automotive software bug/malware caused an additional 1.25 million road deaths in 2020, it would rightfully be a massive story, could potentially overwhelm emergency and medical services, and would be something to be concerned about mitigating as much as possible. [1] http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/scenario.html http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/scenario.htm... [2] https://youtu.be/AoLw-Q8X174 https://youtu.be/AoLw-Q8X174

internet_user 7y ago
There is a table circulating the internet that’s been eerily accurate for the last week or so. In both cases and deaths. I will try to find it and link to it ina follow up comment. It predicts a million deaths in a month from now, based on the observed R0 of this coronavirus.
yread 7y ago
This is one scary graph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Log-linear_plot_of_coronovirus_cases_with_linear_regressions.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Log-linear_plot_of_corono...
- mirimir 7y ago
  Yeah, and if you project to Feb 28, you get ~100 million deaths. Deaths have plateaued somewhat over the past few days, but even then we're looking at a million or so.
- phreeza 7y ago
  A logistic curve looks exponential until it doesn't. There is no telling just from looking at this when it will plateau.

by themgt 7y ago

internet_user 7y ago

There is a table circulating the internet that’s been eerily accurate for the last week or so. In both cases and deaths. I will try to find it and link to it ina follow up comment. It predicts a million deaths in a month from now, based on the observed R0 of this coronavirus.

yread 7y ago

This is one scary graph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Log-linear_plot_of_coronovirus_cases_with_linear_regressions.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Log-linear_plot_of_corono...

mirimir 7y ago
Yeah, and if you project to Feb 28, you get ~100 million deaths. Deaths have plateaued somewhat over the past few days, but even then we're looking at a million or so.
phreeza 7y ago
A logistic curve looks exponential until it doesn't. There is no telling just from looking at this when it will plateau.