Understand, don't disagree. But we simply don't know how many people have been infected to know where that leads. If most people have been infected and that's all that has happened that would be very good news. That would also mean there's not much more the virus can infect. But we have no reliable data to know any of that.
It is clearly very infectious. If only 5,000 people of that 1.34 million have been infected that 100 deaths becomes significant and has a lot of upward mobility to get far worse. If 500,000 of that 1.34 million have been infected then it has likely run its course.
We simply don't know. Making bad assumptions either way has serious consequences.
Right. Especially about the mild case end of the spectrum, and the simple reality is that we will not ever know, because the mildest and milder cases won't get tested.
All we have to go on, then are the Chinese numbers, which are questionable, at best. Those, too, may provide a worst case scenario, or the Chinese may have been dropping like flies and getting cremated in pits. There is no way to tell.
What we do have as a profile, is that bar graph showing mortality by age group, and the understanding that virtually every death attributed to COVID-19 also involved other pulmonary, cardiac, or metabolic disorders (diabetes). If you are under 50, if you have no preexisting medical condition, your odds of being killed by this look to be slim.
As age goes up, or in the presence of underlying problems, your risk goes up.
Now, despite that, I ask you which group is being steered toward wholesale panic by the MSM, and why?
I think the answer becomes apparrent, especially considering the political polarization of the MSM, the ardent desire to have ANYTHING they can use against the incumbent in an election year where their candidates suck, and even the oft repeated mantras of how POTUS "didn't do anything", when, despite his orders, those whose job it was to follow those directives and get the job done have failed, not him. We're talking aobut people in bureaucratic polsitions who rose through the ranks over a span of years, in some cases, administrations, who suddenly, despite their alleged leadership in those positions have miserably failed to do what they were told. State Dept personnel and CDC personnel have dropped the ball on this, and somewhere in that mix, the FDA shares some of that.
I'm not playing thatpolitical game, and when the political hyperbole is stripped away, we have an unknown disease, considered very contagious, but at the same time, one which presents unknowns in terms of how serious it is overall in a given population.
THere are clusters where the disease has been relatively devastating, in Washington State Nursing homes, and in the North of Italy, but we don't have enough facts about the groups involved, mostly about those in Washington, universally older, and with preexisting medical problems. As for Italy, at one point the average age of victims was 81 years old, but the numbers have changed, more have died, and we really don't have much to go on, either in terms of knowing what care was available or utilized, nor the general health of the victims.
WHile it pays to be vigilant, to be careful to limit the spread of this, as much as we would say, the flu or other respiratory diseases, this isn't the time to be stripping store shelves, hiding behind our doors (although avoiding crowds may be prudent).
People can and will argue that if everyone stays home the disease won't spread (well, it will, just not as fast), but saying it didn't because of that, might not be entirely correct because mild cases may still continue through segments of the population with few symptoms, and symptoms of such low severity as to be pretty much ignored.
At that point, will the damage done by being overly cautious, even panicked, be more severe than the disease itself? I think so. But everyone needs to evaluate their own risks versus benefits, there, and act accordingly.
Why don't we consider screaming "FIRE!" in a crowded theater free speech (especially if there isn't a fire)?
Because more will die in the stampede for the exits than would have if they had left the theater in an orderly fashion, and definitely more than if there had been no fire at all.
So, in keeping with my general attitude toward this bug, let's calm down, get some useful stats, and consider what is indeed prudent against what might be excessive. We can always panic later.
For those so inclined, I am appalled at the apparent lack of Faith in The Almighty. Be calm. He knows what He is doing.
