[OutsiderFan]

OK, given I totally understand the balance that must be walked between protecting the public, social disruption, and keeping the economy going, I'm not going to come down too hard on public health officials in the U.S. or other countries for how this whole SARS-CoV-2 thing has been managed. It's something kind of unprecedented, and certainly never been seen in the age of corporate and social media insta-sharing. Instead, I will say this is why the CDC screwing up the testing so early in the game is so catastrophic, and why any skepticism I had that this thing is going to ravage the U.S. as much or more as other countries, was removed last week.

(I have no clue why these tweets aren't posting correctly, sorry)

On the topic of testing in South Korea (which is arguably the best source of data so far)
https://twitter.com/BBCLBicker/status/12...9586922498

Complication rates in South Korea 
[tweet]https://twitter.com/BBCLBicker/status/1233721824489267205[/tweet]

This tweet thread is quite sobering, especially for those in the Seattle area.
https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1233970271318503426

The gist is this thing has been spreading among the population for weeks, all around the world, totally undetected. Governments have assumed that because there weren't many cases confirmed, that meant the spread was minimal.  The Washington and South Korean data included here, along with the exploding cases in Iran, Italy, Germany, France, really everywhere, proves the point.

No, it's not THAT deadly. The issue is that with 20% of infected requiring hospitalization, and a R0 so outrageously high, this has the ability to totally overwhelm our health care system. I read the other day the U.S. only has 1,000,000 hospital beds. If just 10% of the population gets it (which is much lower than most epidemiologist projections), that would be 30,000,000 Americans. If 20% require hospitalization, that's 6,000,000 for 1,000,000 beds. And this doesn't even begin to address the cost of everyone needing to pay for that medical care. If there ever was a time for a ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure, this would seem to be it. 

The only way China slowed this was by effectively locking people in their homes.  No other country has done this, and even Italy's efforts to contain have seemingly failed, ostensibly because there was too much spread by the time cases were detected, for containment to work. Amazingly, France put out a statement yesterday saying it's not even going to bother with quarantines because they don't work. They have banned gatherings of more than 5,000 people, but I kind of think France is right that quarantines won't work because to have this many cases means it's already spread too much to be contained by quarantines. 

[OutsiderFan]

OK, given I totally understand the balance that must be walked between protecting the public, social disruption, and keeping the economy going, I'm not going to come down too hard on public health officials in the U.S. or other countries for how this whole SARS-CoV-2 thing has been managed. It's something kind of unprecedented, and certainly never been seen in the age of corporate and social media insta-sharing. Instead, I will say this is why the CDC screwing up the testing so early in the game is so catastrophic, and why any skepticism I had that this thing is going to ravage the U.S. as much or more as other countries, was removed last week.

(I have no clue why these tweets aren't posting correctly, sorry)

On the topic of testing in South Korea (which is arguably the best source of data so far)
https://twitter.com/BBCLBicker/status/12...9586922498

Complication rates in South Korea 
[tweet]https://twitter.com/BBCLBicker/status/1233721824489267205[/tweet]

This tweet thread is quite sobering, especially for those in the Seattle area.
https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1233970271318503426

The gist is this thing has been spreading among the population for weeks, all around the world, totally undetected. Governments have assumed that because there weren't many cases confirmed, that meant the spread was minimal.  The Washington and South Korean data included here, along with the exploding cases in Iran, Italy, Germany, France, really everywhere, proves the point.

No, it's not THAT deadly. The issue is that with 20% of infected requiring hospitalization, and a R0 so outrageously high, this has the ability to totally overwhelm our health care system. I read the other day the U.S. only has 1,000,000 hospital beds. If just 10% of the population gets it (which is much lower than most epidemiologist projections), that would be 30,000,000 Americans. If 20% require hospitalization, that's 6,000,000 for 1,000,000 beds. And this doesn't even begin to address the cost of everyone needing to pay for that medical care. If there ever was a time for a ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure, this would seem to be it. 

The only way China slowed this was by effectively locking people in their homes.  No other country has done this, and even Italy's efforts to contain have seemingly failed, ostensibly because there was too much spread by the time cases were detected, for containment to work. Amazingly, France put out a statement yesterday saying it's not even going to bother with quarantines because they don't work. They have banned gatherings of more than 5,000 people, but I kind of think France is right that quarantines won't work because to have this many cases means it's already spread too much to be contained by quarantines.