True, in some respects. The twenty figure is, of course, pulled out of my ass, it isn`t a real number. There will be plenty of people who don`t infect a single other person. And then you will have your idiots, like those geniuses at spring break.
But social distancing and limited contact with others only helps in some ways. It seems the virus can stay alive on some surfaces for days. On money I`ve heard it can be hours, so you are rolling the dice if you get bills in change (pro tip, try to pay with cards or exact bills so you don`t get bills back in change. I`m not sure about coin change, so I haven`t been taking it). Right now the odds aren`t that great that the cashiers and other people who you must deal with will be infected, but that will change. Lets say there in a one in a hundred thousand chance a person a cashier waits on has the virus now. Soon the odds will be much greater, and every person the cashier serves, the cashier is buying a lottery ticket to infection. You going to stop going to store (the option may soon be taken away from you anyway)? You might not be as safe in your bubble as you think, if one person brings it into your small circle, just about everybody can get it.
I hate to come off as a pessimist (it is actually quite foreign to my nature, I`ve always been a skeptic when it comes to doom and gloom), but I`m afraid it is simple realism. I hope I am wrong about all of this, but from what I`m seeing this is the reality.
> This is also why politicians and celebrities are at greater risk; they travel more, meet more people, interact with larger numbers of people who move around the world. Their "circles" are larger.
True. And we can survive quite well if all those fuckers die. It the cashiers and the health care providers who are indispensable. And they can`t hide (although they have been putting plastic barriers up at my local Shoprite).
> Granted, over time that small circle expands. Some of that 20 we meet with daily travel outside that group over time and meet with others. This is where the virus spreads. But this is why they have quarantines and self isolation: to flatten the curve over time, limit travel among our "circles", and give hospitals the time to deal with the victims.
That is the strategy. But the economic issues are is some ways just as scary as the health issues. How long can the country exist on lockdown? The money the government takes in has dramatically decreased, the money it is putting out has dramatically increased. It is not feasible to maintain this. I saw it costs an average of $20,000 per coronavirus patient. And I don`t know if you noticed this, but many of our fellow Americans are idiots. It will hit the druggies and the derelicts hard, but not before they overwhelm the healthcare system. Don`t expect a ventilator by the time you get there.
I remember the conversation I had with my brother early on. I told him "This is going to be bad". He asked what I meant. I said "Let`s just say it was a little premature to widen I-95".
> Two key areas, it seems to me (playing doctor) to look at are: per capita rate of infections and per capita death rates due to the virus. As I understand, the latest numbers (from yesterday) indicate that we're doing "good" relative to other western nations. We're second only to the UK in per capita rates of infection and only behind Germany and Norway on virus-caused deaths per capita. That's among western nations.
Keep in mind it hasn`t really hit yet. Every major city will be what NYC is right now. This morning I looked at the total US cases and it was 104,256. It is now 119,682. Remember what I said about exponential growth, the jumps will accelerate as there are more and more people with the potential to infect more and more people. Isolation and self-quarantining help, they aren`t the cure. It`s great if we can keep people who get it alive, but it is the spread that is the killer, not the survival rate, and we are spreading at an alarming rate.
> Here's what I read: "The number of per capita deaths reported in the United States remains amongst the lowest in the world. As of today [3/27], the US has recorded 5 deaths per million from the Wuhan virus, one-fifth of the total in Western European countries as a whole. Only Germany and Norway are recording lower deaths per capita, and that is only by a small fraction."
This isn`t a competition. These are very preliminary numbers, it hasn`t begun to hit yet. NYC had 11 known cases a little over 3 weeks ago, look at it now with a death every nine and a half minutes...
https://nypost.com/2020/03/28/nyc-coronavirus-cases-reach-nearly-30k-with-a-death-every-9-5-seconds/
This will repeat itself in every city. It hasn`t hit everywhere equally yet, but it will eventually.
> Second: "Except for the UK, the US has fewer reported cases per capita than every Western European country. Some will argue that our per capita test rate is too low to make such a comparison legitimate. Since the number of per capita tests run in the US is now comparable or better to every European country other than Italy’s and Germany’s, that argument is losing weight. Tracking case rates over the next few weeks will tell us a lot."
We already have the necessary data. NYC has provided it.
> "Next few weeks". Yes, it seems to me that the next 2-3 weeks will be telling us whether this is just terrible or a catastrophe.
I`m afraid I already know.