Pete, if you’re ready for mid-term isolation, it doesn’t make any real difference. You’ll wait and see if this turns out to be simply a bad flu year. But that possibility is disappearing fast, IMO.
The best case scenario is Korea's 0.7% fatality rate, the lowest in the world. CFR of 0.7 is seven times worse that a bad seasonal flu year. Note that their cigarette use runs about 20% of the population and obesity is about 5%. Ours is 17% smokers and 40% obese. They already have hundreds who need hospitalization with no beds available.
WHO's official CFR is 3.6%, 36 times that of flu, and is what Iran and Italy are currently seeing. I’d expect that to go down in Italy as more asymptomatic cases are identified but Iran looks to hold steady at 3.6. They are getting absolutely hammered.
CFR varies by locale and population. There have been two variants, or clades, of COVID19 identified and there are emerging worries that the more dangerous type, the same one that circulated initially in Wuhan, is attacking Iran.
The factor that is overlooked in these discussions is the exponential doubling of cases. This is the source of those “showering without rubber ducky decals is more dangerous that COVID19” posts you might have seen.
It’s true. Right now, at the very early stages of this pandemic in the US, we are seeing few hospitalizations and deaths. But note that Italy was in the same place just one week ago and today they have the most deaths outside of China and they're planning a complete one-month lockdown of 1/4 of their population with no travel allowed into or out of northern Italy.
See the link below for a clear discussion of the issue of exponential case growth and the implications for our health system and the availability of masks/gowns/IV/etc. (Pro tip: they won’t last one day). The author is very cautious to use the most optimistic of all projections and to bracket every assumption with +/- adjustments.
If you can find a hole in her logic let me know. I can’t. Click on the black bar to see the entire thread.
https://twitter.com/threadreaderapp/...321501185?s=21