Terrible take and wishful thinking; this article will not age well. You can't write off the Diamond Princess as "well the people on it were old, so their morta

Terrible take and wishful thinking; this article will not age well. You can't write off the Diamond Princess as "well the people on it were old, so their mortality doesn't count." It's the one natural experiment where we do have good, hard numbers. In terms of access to treatment, they're the optimal scenario, and so it's likely that the mortality rate will be around 1% for older people with access to treatment. This is far higher than the flu and a disaster in itself. But what makes this a mega-disaster is what happens when the medical system is overloaded. That's when you get the scary 2%+ overall mortality. And we are getting closer and closer to the point of no return where community transmission swamps all medical facilities. It is what happened in Wuhan, and it can happen in Western countries. Beyond that, the author piles on as many optimistic assumptions as possible: every death is accurately counted! Millions of people are asymptomatically infected! The USA will be as effective as Singapore in responding! Cases are peaking and will start to decline! I'd usually refrain from calling something like that idiotic, but since he's more than happy to lodge insults like hysterical and witch hunt, yes, he's saying idiotic things. The thing is, by approaching the issue with seriousness and diligence, it's possible to avoid that death spiral! China did in all of its other provinces. And, in a better and more applicable way, Singapore has responded with effectiveness and humanity. But it seems like the main opinions among the ruling class in the US range from "it's just the flu" to "it's a hoax!"