[baymeadows3408]

Exactly.  Paradoxically, what makes SARS-COVID-2 so dangerous is that it does not cause universally severe disease.  The advantage that public health officials had in fighting SARS, MERS, and Ebola is that it was easy to identify who was sick and who was contagious.  Fighting Covid-19 is like being in a sea of icebergs.  For each case you see at the surface, there are several under the water that you can't see.


BC

Amen! These cases may not show symptoms for 2-3 days while they are spreading the disease. If the subject doesn't get real sick, they may not notice and spread the disease for weeks.

I'm in grad school right now so I can become a speech-language pathologist, and I have concerns about how my future job might put me in danger. SLPs tend to work in hospitals (close contact with sick people for things like swallowing evaluations), schools (known breeding grounds for disease), and in speech clinics (kids and adults coming in and out all day and having kids touch materials). The clinician and the client need to be able to see each other's faces for things like articulation therapy. I've had kids cough directly onto me. I'm not going to be comfortable doing this kind of work until A) there's a vaccine B) there is rapid testing to prove that the person I'm working with is not an asymptomatic carrier C) there is a treatment that makes COVID-19 less heinous if you do contract it or D) we have overall herd immunity, but it looks like I may not be comfortable for a while.

[baymeadows3408]

Exactly.  Paradoxically, what makes SARS-COVID-2 so dangerous is that it does not cause universally severe disease.  The advantage that public health officials had in fighting SARS, MERS, and Ebola is that it was easy to identify who was sick and who was contagious.  Fighting Covid-19 is like being in a sea of icebergs.  For each case you see at the surface, there are several under the water that you can't see.


BC

Amen! These cases may not show symptoms for 2-3 days while they are spreading the disease. If the subject doesn't get real sick, they may not notice and spread the disease for weeks.

I'm in grad school right now so I can become a speech-language pathologist, and I have concerns about how my future job might put me in danger. SLPs tend to work in hospitals (close contact with sick people for things like swallowing evaluations), schools (known breeding grounds for disease), and in speech clinics (kids and adults coming in and out all day and having kids touch materials). The clinician and the client need to be able to see each other's faces for things like articulation therapy. I've had kids cough directly onto me. I'm not going to be comfortable doing this kind of work until A) there's a vaccine B) there is rapid testing to prove that the person I'm working with is not an asymptomatic carrier C) there is a treatment that makes COVID-19 less heinous if you do contract it or D) we have overall herd immunity, but it looks like I may not be comfortable for a while.