4 ms·
70% of the country will get infected. No matter what we do. The only difference is how long it will take. Even with the most drastic measures imaginable, 70%
by hcknwscommenter 7y ago
70% of the country will get infected. No matter what we do. The only difference is how long it will take. Even with the most drastic measures imaginable, 70% will get infected. If they all get infected in the next month, the death rate skyrockets. If it takes 6-12 months, the death rate will be ~0.5%. Heck, we might even have reliable clinical results indicating a useful treatment by then. Right now on that front all we have is a very small amount of anecdata, but we should expect some decent data on Remdesivir from China soon, and I guarantee you that every pharma/biotech in the world with a nucleotide analogue is doing testing/screening today.
- ummonk 7y ago> 70% of the country will get infected. No matter what we do. That's not really true. South Korea and China have proven that this thing can be stopped and R0 can be driven below 1. It just requires decisive action by the state (either heavy quarantining or mass testing coupled with behavioral changes by the population).
- hcknwscommenter 7y agoStopped has not been proven anywhere. Maybe my conviction was a little too strongly worded, but we shall learn in a few years via serological testing regardless. My guess is that when final numbers come out we will find that about 50-70% of the global people are seropositive (meaning they have been exposed). That's about what we get for most endemic viruses. Check back in a few years and we shall see.
- ummonk 7y agoLet me put it this way: symptomatic cases as a percent of the population in China and South Korea are multiple orders of magnitude lower than what we saw on the cruise ship, and the growth of cases testing positive (or showing symptoms) is slowing (in absolute not just relative terms).