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We know that in the vast majority of cases, the body clears the virus, and there's protection against re-infection for at least some time. We know the infectio

We know that in the vast majority of cases, the body clears the virus, and there's protection against re-infection for at least some time. We know the infection fatality rate is well below 1%. We know that people under 65 are at far lower risk of suffering severe symptoms and death. And we know it's a virus, so will spread and evolve according to the same evolutionary principles as other viruses. There are of course unknowns, but everything in the world has unknowns. We have to make educated guesses, and decide on a strategy based on them.

vkou 6y ago
> We know the infection fatality rate is well below 1%. No, we don't. It seems to be at ~1%. If it were well below 1%, it would be a nothing-burger, and would not have spiked NYC's weekly death rate by a factor of 6.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >If it were well below 1%, it would be a nothing-burger, No, it wouldn't. The other important value is the reproduction rate of the virus. If that value is high, then our healthcare system is going to be overwhelmed just through the sheer number of people that will be infected. So yes, it is looking like the infection fatality rate is well below 1% (as suggested by preliminary studies from NYC, Cali, Germany, and the Netherlands), but because the reproduction rate is so high, and the fact we have no herd immunity, still means thousands (or hundreds of thousands of people) will end up in the ICU. This seems like what happened in NYC and Italy. There was a massive spike in untracked infections in Feb/March. The vast majority of those people cleared the infection, but the tiny percentage of people who had complications, still overwhelmed the availability of ICU beds.