3 ms·

As of right now, covid-19 is killing about 2,200 people/day, compared to about 3,300 people/day for car accidents. So it hasn't caught up yet, but it's still on

As of right now, covid-19 is killing about 2,200 people/day, compared to about 3,300 people/day for car accidents. So it hasn't caught up yet, but it's still on an exponential climb and will probably get there in another week or so, and then keep right on climbing. This whole "the flu/cars/heart disease is way worse" shtick people are leaning on has got to stop. It's true until exponential growth suddenly means it's not. EDIT: And those are the worldwide numbers. In the US specifically, covid-19 is killing about 200 people/day, compared to 100 people/day for car accidents, and is of course going to go way up from here.

deleted 7y ago
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lotsofpulp 7y ago
Wouldn’t the number of people the virus will kill will reach a maximum and then decline rapidly as the remaining population will be immune to it?
- acqq 7y ago
  Yes, but not so soon: at the moment in most of the places it grows exponentially, the numbers doubling every three to four days. So "and will probably get there in another week or so" is probably too slow. If it's really 2000 deaths per day now, I can safely estimate 4000 deaths per day in just three to four days. Then in next 4 days it will be 8000. Save this estimate and compare. In order for the effect you describe to happen (the maximum to be reached) the most popular estimate is that the number of infected has to reach around 70% of the population. Until that point the doubling of deaths every few days, without the measures to prevent that, would continue, deaths happening in always bigger amounts, but concentrated in the few weeks.
- lazyasciiart 7y ago
  Not all diseases cause reliable immunity.
- macintux 7y ago
  The maximum, absent strong measures, will be immense due to the fact that some significant percentage of patients require intensive care/ventilation for weeks. Imagine 5% of the world’s population requiring hospitalization all at roughly the same time. We don’t have 350,000,000 ventilators and hospital beds and health care professionals to take care of them, so the death toll and general suffering would be unimaginable.
- mindslight 7y ago
  Yes, but this statement is trivially true for any exponential spread constrained by a maximum population - even if the virus kills everybody.
jsight 7y ago
I still think the comparison is useful. Cars and their (horrible) rate of serious injury and death seem to be the worst thing that people readily accept. Showing that covid-19 can be worse than that can be enlightening. And it obviously becomes exponentially worse if the hospital system overloads.

deleted 7y ago

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lotsofpulp 7y ago

Wouldn’t the number of people the virus will kill will reach a maximum and then decline rapidly as the remaining population will be immune to it?

acqq 7y ago
Yes, but not so soon: at the moment in most of the places it grows exponentially, the numbers doubling every three to four days. So "and will probably get there in another week or so" is probably too slow. If it's really 2000 deaths per day now, I can safely estimate 4000 deaths per day in just three to four days. Then in next 4 days it will be 8000. Save this estimate and compare. In order for the effect you describe to happen (the maximum to be reached) the most popular estimate is that the number of infected has to reach around 70% of the population. Until that point the doubling of deaths every few days, without the measures to prevent that, would continue, deaths happening in always bigger amounts, but concentrated in the few weeks.
lazyasciiart 7y ago
Not all diseases cause reliable immunity.
macintux 7y ago
The maximum, absent strong measures, will be immense due to the fact that some significant percentage of patients require intensive care/ventilation for weeks. Imagine 5% of the world’s population requiring hospitalization all at roughly the same time. We don’t have 350,000,000 ventilators and hospital beds and health care professionals to take care of them, so the death toll and general suffering would be unimaginable.
mindslight 7y ago
Yes, but this statement is trivially true for any exponential spread constrained by a maximum population - even if the virus kills everybody.

jsight 7y ago

I still think the comparison is useful. Cars and their (horrible) rate of serious injury and death seem to be the worst thing that people readily accept. Showing that covid-19 can be worse than that can be enlightening. And it obviously becomes exponentially worse if the hospital system overloads.