I’ve seen a lot of articles and Facebook posts downplaying how bad the coronavirus pandemic is. I’m not writing this because people should panic, but because things look pretty bad right now and it’s helpful to be prepared. Obviously panic isn’t useful. Also, nothing here is particularly original or new, but I thought I should tell people that I think things are bad.
Maybe I’m just saying things people thought all along, in which case, great!
One reason people are seemingly underestimating the how bad things are may be because it’s actually really hard to understand exponential growth. Currently the number of cases outside of China is growing exponentially, with the number of cases doubling roughly every 5-7 days. Although the number of confirmed cases outside of China is currently below 100,000, because of exponential growth the number will grow very quickly. It took about 10 days to go from 1000 to 10,000 cases outside of China, and it will probably only take roughly 10 more days to get to 100,000 cases, and then maybe another 10 days for 1 million.
I’ve seen people say that COVID-19 isn’t as bad as either the normal seasonal flu, or SARS. The flu is definitely bad, and may kill over 600,000 people in a year, but this novel coronavirus is both more infectious and has higher mortality. Someone with the flu on average will infect 1.3 other people, and it is estimated that someone with coronavirus will infect 2-3 other people on average, maybe as high as 7. The flu has a mortality rate of about 0.1%, so about 1 in 1000 people who catch it will die, while coronavirus has a mortality rate estimated to be at least 20 times higher than this (the WHO now estimates a mortality rate of 3.4%). Currently there isn’t that much data about coronavirus, so most numbers are very rough and could change.
To compare with SARS, we just have to look at the numbers. SARS had a total of 8000 cases, while coronavirus currently has around confirmed 95,000 cases (80,000 in China, 15,000 outside). SARS killed a total of 774 people, while COVID-19 has already killed more than 3000 people.
Coronavirus is made all the more dangerous because it is a new virus which people don’t have any immunity to, and also cases outside of china are GROWING EXPONENTIALLY.
I’ve also seen coronavirus compared to things like deaths from heart disease and cancer. The main difference here (excuse me if I sound like a broken record), is that deaths from heart disease or cancer are pretty stable and aren’t growing exponentially. If they were growing at a similar rate to coronavirus I would be a lot more immediately worried about them (I obviously still think heart disease and cancer are very important). An estimated 1600 people die per day from cancer in the US, and if the exponential growth of coronavirus continues it could easily kill more people per day than this.
Currently healthcare systems are drastically under prepared, and this is probably my biggest worry. Summed up well here, seriously you should read it.
Briefly, if coronavirus infects a similar number of people to a normal flu season hospitals will be overloaded many times over. Even though 80% of people only have mild to moderate cases and don’t need the hospital, that still leaves the remaining 20% (only around 1% of people with the flu need hospitalisation). And once the hospitals are full, that 20% won’t be able to get proper care at a hospital, causing even more deaths. This has already been observed in Wuhan, where the lack of hospital beds and equipment has caused the mortality rate to go from 0.16% to 4.9%.
There also seems to be some borderline misinformation about coronavirus, related to asymptomatic transmission, and to whether the virus can survive on surfaces. Asymptomatic transmission CAN HAPPEN, it seems unsafe and unethical to say that it can’t, although people are currently unsure how common it is. Additionally coronavirus can survive on surfaces for up to 9 days (maybe even as long as 27 on some surfaces).
Speaking of misinformation, it seems prudent to be sceptical of data coming out of China especially if it seems like good news.
I sincerely hope I’m wrong about how bad I think things could get. If I’m wrong feel free to tell me, but before that happens at least consider that things might get bad and try to prepare.
Things to do
Don’t be racist and bad. Just don’t.
Try to stop the habit of touching your face. I have actual advice for this, I used a counter app on my phone to just manually count the number of times I touched my face. This made me conscious that I was doing it, which is helping me train myself out of it.
Obviously, wash hands properly, be hygienic.
Prepare for self isolation. Try to make sure your house has decent food supplies, and if you require medication try to get a prescription for a longer time. Also psychologically prepare, because it sounds like it suuuucks.
As things get worse
Stay away from big gatherings, and places where you’re touching things a lot of have touched i.e. the gym.
Talk to the old people in your life about coronavirus and the risks to them. This disease is very dangerous to old people, for people over 80 the mortality rate is estimated at 14.8%. If the old people in your life live in rest homes, talk with the rest home and make sure they have proper plans for when things get worse. Given how deadly this is for old people, a total lockdown doesn’t seem unreasonable.
Again, I really hope I’m wrong about this, but also no ideas here are new or original. Being prepared just seems sensible, if things get worse you’re in a good position, and if things don’t get worse you’ve probably got some extra food in your cupboard and you can laugh at me.