As for patient numbers, the same source claims an estimated 4.3 million patients with flu symptoms this season. If accurate, that would be a very very low mortality rate for the flu. If you scaled up that rate using Covid-19 lab-confirmed deaths you'd end up at virtually the entire population already being infected.
In the US flu infection rate is about 20% on average, I've seen estimations of 50-70% for C19.
No shit? I never would have thunk it. My point was that this is already more people than the flu, and it is doing so very quickly.
You remind me of an old joke.
"Two guys get blown off course in a hot air baloon, they land in some field where there is a guy herding sheep. They ask the guy:
- Hey can you tell use where we are?
- You are in a hot air baloon"
Absolute numbers don't tell us anything useful at all, the study talks specifically about the rates not absolutes, so what is the point of your point?
If we are missing deaths caused by this, the rate is even higher.
Yes it's the other side of that same coin, though I suspect the death counts are more accurate than infection counts. If anything they might be inflated since it's basically up to the doctor to use their judgement to call something a C19 death vs not.
It is also impossible to say how high the rate of infections are at his point due to a lack of enough tests. It is also impossible to get that rate from those that show up to get tested because they are already symptomatic.
We do have some data, I forget which state did it but some tested a bunch of homeless people in shelters whether they had symptoms or not. There is also what we know from the cruise ship (can't recall the name at the moment) so we can make some fairly educated guesses as to the actual rate of infection.
None of this is isolated. The whole system can collapses like dominos.
There is also the question of how long the recession (or possibly depression) will actually last. Even as we come out of the lock down how many people will have money to spend on non-essentials?
If the US reopens too early, the virus will restart its exponential trajectory and the country will have to close down again. The earlier they reopen, the earlier they will have to lockdown again.
Reopening is not a binary concept, for example NY government has already said they will have three phases of reopening and will evaluate infection rates at the end of each phase to make a decision on whether we can go to next phase or even back a phase.
But if milk is getting wasted, make cheese. When, in due time, milk will cost a fortune and cheese will be cheap, people will eat cheese. Which means: adapt, rather than throwing food away.
Cheese expires too, cheese producers have a limited production and storage capacity, warehouses have a limited storage capacity, etc... It's not nearly as simple as you make it out to be.
This is, again, the effect of the shortcomings of the US system, that has not taken into account a possibility like this, even if that could be crippling.
No country in the world took this possibility into account, all pandemic plans always assumed that early containment was possible no one had any expectation of having to shut down the entire world for a few months.
I am with you. I am one of the few that stayed at home before it was recommended because I have underlying conditions that make me susceptible.
I've also been home much earlier than suggested.
I've thought of the same thing that
@Momentum57 is saying, how many people are really going to be all down for going out to stores/bars/etc...