Knowing how many people are infected is also critical to figuring out which policies are needed to mitigate the impact of the disease on the hospital system. After all, if tens of millions of people already have the virus, you’re not going to stop it by making people stay in their homes... It’s already too late. I strongly suspect that was the case here. I suspect we will eventually learn that this virus had been circulating undetected in the U.S. since at least December. We have already seen that the initial forecasts of more than 2 million deaths are complete nonsense. And what is certainly different about this virus, as compared with the regular flu, is that when it emerged, there was zero existing immunity to it... which meant it spread like wildfire. But the good news is that super-contagious viruses also burn out quicker because herd immunity impacts the growth rate. So... should we have shut down our entire economy for a month in March, long after the virus had spread to millions? No! What we’re doing will not reduce the total infection rate or the mortality rates of this virus. It’s far too late for the strategy we’re using. How do I know? The best evidence of how widespread the virus has become comes from studies of fecal matter in wastewater treatment plants. A group of researchers from Harvard, MIT, the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and
estimates that 30 million people got the flu and around 60,000 people died, or 0.2%. But, wait... we know for sure that far more people have gotten this coronavirus than have been tested for it. As I just noted, the statistical sampling of antibodies in Germany suggests a much, much lower lethality rate. And the real mortality rate is probably somewhere closer to the regular flu, as there are going to be a lot more deaths to come from people who are presently infected. So what do you want to bet that we eventually figure out that the population-wide mortality rate for this virus is about the same as all of the other coronaviruses? But what if I’m wrong? I might be. Nobody knows how widespread the virus is already in the U.S. But since we don’t know for sure, why in the world are we ordering everyone to stay in their homes? Why don’t we find out and then decide? Knowing the real lethality of the virus (which can only be calculated if you know how many people are infected) informs us how dangerous the virus is for most people. We already know that this virus isn’t a significant killer for people under the age of 50. Virtually no one without serious existing conditions has died from this virus under the age of 50. And we also know from places that have actual data that this coronavirus is no more dangerous than the other viruses that we know circulate around our country on a regular basis every year.
American Consequences
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