Among the many virus items in my yesterday's local newspaper two items caught my eye...
1) Last week the sports department of the newspaper was laid off. ZERO local games to cover.
2) There was this article full of numbers by a computer scientist. I know that there are many here who absolutely love to attack numbers. Interested in your opinion of his opinion / analysis.
Vinny
https://www.recorder.com/COVID-19-What- ... r-33494776
Opinion > Columns
My Turn: COVID-19: What we know so far
By JERRY SCOTT
Published: 3/29/2020 1:28:03 PM
COVID-19 is just a new virus we have to deal with.
Mik Muller [My Turn: Make America healthy again”] is right. Too bad he had to ruin his input with politics. Public health belongs where it is now, in the CDC and NIH. Not in with the spies.
There is hope in a closer look.
Viruses are self-limiting by nature. Infection rates in a population are determined by the number of ways the virus can be transmitted, how long the viruses can survive outside of a host, and how long an infected host can transmit the virus before they become non-infectious or die. There are lots of viruses that infect people. They are all different. Think the Rhino viruses that infect many and kill few and Ebola, which infects few and kills most. Comparing one to another is not really a good way of looking at COVID-19.
Virologists have established that most viruses fall into the 40 to 70 percent infection rate in any given population. Death rates among the infected fall between .001% (or less) and 10% (or more). So far, COVID-19 seems likely to be acting in that infection range with a death rate of between 1% and 2%. Using a US population of 365,000,000, here is what might happen if we do nothing.
70% infected = 255,000,000, 2% death rate = 5,110,000
40% infected = 146,000,000, 1% death rate = 1,460,000
That is pretty scary.
But we are not doing nothing. If the social distancing measures currently underway can reduce the infection rate to 20% and modern medicine can reduce the death rate to .25%, both possible, this is what it may look like and it could be a lot lower.
20% infected = 73,000,000, .25% death rate = 638,750
Still very bad.
But a little perspective may make it a little less scary. Flu is expected to kill between 40,000 and 55,000 this flu season: Auto accidents will add 38,800, cancer 606,880, and heart disease 647,000. Even with that and the impact of COVID-19 the U.S. population will increase by almost 1,000,000 in 2020.
It is clear that what we do, each one of us, can have a huge impact. Expect the big numbers. But, do what we can. After all, our grandparents and great grandparents survived 1918.
Jerry Scott is computer scientist living in Northfield.