Posted on 03/17/2020 5:56:59 AM PDT by karpov
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In our current hours of COVID-19 despair, we must fight both the virus and the panic that the disease instills, given that the two can be equally deadly. All sorts of scary statistics about the coronavirus infection and lethality rates are being publicized, often to show contrasts with annual influenza strains and other viral epidemics. Some make the legitimate point that if the coronavirus has a lethality rate of over 1 percent to 3 percent in the United States, then perhaps 97 percent to 99 percent of those infected will survive the illness, albeit with varying degrees of seriousness. And for the vast majority of Americans under 50, it may be that 99 percent will recover from infection, in contrast with almost every known “pandemic” in history.
Others, more pessimistic—or perhaps realistic—retort that such an apparently low lethality rate shouldn’t be cause for relief. After all, COVID-19 will likely remain 10 to 20 times more lethal than annual influenzas (with their 0.01 percent to 0.02 percent death rates). Thus, in theory, it could kill not merely 30,000 to 60,000 of some 60 million infected Americans per year, as does an average flu, but rather 300,000 to 600,000, or even double that number. All too possible again.
But the problem with all such educated guesses is that we simply don’t have hard data, at least not yet. If we assume that around 43 million Americans got the flu in the 2018–2019 season and 61,000 died (for a lethality rate, say, of 0.14 percent), that figure is arrived at by the more exact numbers of known deaths—determined by data from given hospitalizations and coroner reports, and past calibrations and experience.
(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...
Israel just passed sweeping powers to track mobile phones so they can tell who is breaking quarantine and who has been in the vicinity of someone who tested positive.
I can absolutely see legislation granting broad powers to the federal bureaucracy above what governors have. It would make the Patriot Act look like a minor inconvenience.
It would be unconstitutional, but we cannot rely on SCOTUS to decide that. We must stand ready to prevent it.
True that we don't yet have enough data regarding the Wuhan flu.
Mentioned on FoxNews, was a nurse who contracted covid 19 while on holdiday in Hawaii .
She noted that symptoms didn't occur until her return home, and then following regular flu symptoms, she noted a shortness of breath.
One of the residual outcomes from the virus may be a shortness of breath, as much as 30% reduced breathing capacity.
This loss of breathing capacity needs to be further investigated, as re-infection could lead to a need for a respirator,
and could result in influenza increase of fatalities.
Well people should have thought of that before they whipped it into a frenzy on sites like this.
Now they complain about the response by the state?
They are “responding” in direct proportion to the hysteria.
bttt
Which makes the point that keeping the infection spread below what can be supported by present health care facilities is key to limiting long term damage to the populace.
Well if Victor Davis Hanson can’t make up his big mind about this, I feel better that neither can I
The number of influenza cases in the flue season mortality rate is estimated.
The number of cases in the coronavirus mortality rate is the actual, positively tested number.
These values are the denominator in the mortality rate calculation.
The FACT is the two calculations cannot be compared, because one uses assumptions that are not available and/or applied to the other. They are apples and oranges.
IMO, of course.
Smart people get it. We’re doing it WRONG.
I didn’t see the byline at first, but read the first sentence and knew this was Hanson. He’s not only intelligent and a great thinker, but wise and prudent to boot. I always enjoy reading his thoughts and am always edified by them.
An epidemic of increased surveillance powers.
Once governments get a taste of this they will look for ways to use and expand it.
(looks at Italy’s 7% Corona fatality rate) It is best to be prudent
WTF Texas? 57 tests and all are positive. Come Gov Abbett start testing aggressively.
ut the problem with all such educated guesses is that we simply don’t have hard data,
There is no hard data (and maybe never was). The truth is a rare commodity.
Yes! Just as our attempts to prevent global warming AT ANY COST will also be not worth the price.
even the death of 600,000 people doesn’t justify the destruction of civilization
The problem now is if it is not bad, we will not know if it was the prevention or just not bad. We can take Italy and South Korea (at the start) and try to use them as examples. No prevention allowed it to explode early.
This is over. No more hockey sticks since the NHL suspended play.
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