The following is a letter that I wrote and have sent to a few family and friends. Given the news today I decided I would post it here for my broader family and because I haven’t had time to write individual messages to all those I intended but know most of them will see if through the links to my posting here.
RE: Thoughts on the global coronavirus crisis – February 25, 2020
Dear friends and family,
Good afternoon. I’m sending this email to many of my friends and family. I’ve debated for several weeks about how to write this email or if I should at all. The events of the past weekend moved me to action. What I am about to say may initially sound a bit alarming if you have not been tracking the progress of the coronavirus over the past two weeks and given the generally dismissive feelings among the general public but I know that not saying something now will result in a possible loss of a window of opportunity to prepare oneself for a variety of possible outcomes. Please take what I write below as my informed observations and thoughts on the current SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 viral epidemic and likely soon to be pandemic.
I’ve been following the coronavirus story very closely since early January. I’ve tracked its progress every single day and follow multiple virologists and their scientific discussion forums. I’ve read many of the latest papers written about this particular virus and the coronavirus family in general. I have also been reading scientific papers that have analyzed the history of pandemic flues. Some of my research was done so that I could discuss the virus with a college course on Genomics that I am currently teaching. All of this this combined with my admittedly paranoid-tendencies has caused me to lose much sleep over the past several weeks. However, I’ve talked to enough experts to realize that my thoughts and conclusions are not without merit. My search through what I believe are trusted sources providing realistic outcomes to this viral outbreak have forced me to conclude that there is a good chance we are watching a slow-moving black swan event sweeping the world. Thus, at a minimum these events warrant at least thinking through possible actions we might take or at least maintain awareness of for the time being. The time is very near that world leaders will have to say that it is not a question of how the virus will effect each of your lives, it’s a question of how much. Already our economy is being effected and will continue to be even if the virus never catches hold in the US. However, that unfortunately is now our best-case scenario: some economic discomfort.
We have to consider that this virus is probably unstoppable at this point (and just confirmed today after I wrote this letter: https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/25/cdc-expects-community-spread-of-coronavirus-as-top-official-warns-disruptions-could-be-severe/). By unstoppable I mean that it is going to find its way to nearly every corner of the earth over the next year or two with hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of people eventually contracting the virus. Therefore it’s all about mitigation of the effect of the virus not extinction of the virus as was the case with SARS in 2002/2003. Efforts will soon turn to slowing its progress so that we can learn more about it and how to treat it more effectively. It’s very likely now that the virus will come at some point to your community in the US. The question is when? Two weeks, two months, a year or maybe even longer? I don’t know and no one can know for certain. It won’t come to each place at the same time and in many places it will only effect very local pockets. Even if there were one million cases in the US your odds of getting the virus would be very small but it is still worth considering how to be ready for when it arrives since we can’t know where it could have a local breakout. Your measured reaction can also help to prevent further spread and reduce anxiety of your friends and family.
How much should we worry?
With respect to the latter question it is still hard to say since there are many unknowns. We don’t know how lethal the virus will end up being. We know it spreads easily but still don’t know how long a person with the virus can spread it or how much they can spread it without showing symptoms. The Chinese data not not be completely reliable and so we don’t know how bad it is but we can say for certain that virus is something we cannot ignore.
Many people are saying it’s just another flu (or worse yet, it’s just a virus that causes a bad cold) and look around and say “my life isn’t that different because we are having a bad flu season so what should I worry about?” At this point the coronavirus becoming another flu is probably the most optimistic outcome. Yes, maybe it will be just another flu but all indications at this point are that this “flu” will cause far more serious illness and death than the “seasonal flu.” A normal flu season has a fatality rate of about 1 in 1000 or less of those that get symptoms of the flu. This coronavirus (SARS CoV 2) which causes what is being called COVID-19 has a case fatality rate in China right now of about 3.3% (78,000 cases and 2660 deaths so far as of February 24) with huge variation depending in the regions examined. It is very likely that the number of cases is under-reported or known and so that fatality rate is probably too high. On the other hand there are thousands of people in critical condition and people are dying three or four weeks after first falling ill and so the total fatality numbers you see are lagging behind infections identified. The fatality rate may be as high 3% but could be as low as hopefully 0.5% (5 in 1000). The latter seems to be a rather optimistic number but is still five times the regular flu and so can’t be ignored or treated as if it’s “just the flu”.
But there is a bigger problem. Even if the fatality rate were 0.2 (just twice the regular flu or about what an especially bad flu from the past 50 years has been) it’s not the number of people dying, as tragic as that would be, that is the biggest problem. The larger problem is that a high percentage of people that catch the virus will need to be hospitalized for 10 to 20 days with intensive care. In Wuhan China a study of 77,000 of those that have contracted the virus revealed a very high 19% requiring intensive hospitalization (see: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762130?). Hopefully that very high percentage is the result of only testing cases that were already expressing pneumonia and other factors not shared in other places but even if only 5% needed to be hospitalized that would be a serious strain on any health system. Less than 1% of people with the seasonal flu will ever need to be hospitalized. So this virus has the potential to be extremely taxing on the health care system. This is why social distancing and other measures to slow (not stop) the spread will probably be necessary. If it spreads quickly the hospital system will not be able to treat everyone.
It doesn’t take much imagination to understand what could happen to society if this should happen? The panic could be worse than the disease. That would probably be limited to small pockets in affected areas but since we don’t know where it will show up it’s something one should think about how one would be prepared for something like that. I’m still hopeful that the virus will have a lower hospitalization rate and fatality rate than it seems to have now. If it is on the low end, most of us will be moderately inconvenienced. In rural areas very few may be infected. Some cities might see outbreaks but others may see almost no cases at the same time. Even in an outbreak area is there are thousands of cases that still might only represent a small part of the population so even then your chance of contracting the virus would be small but obviously not insignificant. As a result, in outbreak situations it would not be surprising to have schools out and sporting events cancelled and so forth for weeks or even months at a time to allow the virus to slowing work its way through and keep the health system working well. Hundreds of businesses, especially retail shopping and restaurants would suffer significant economic damage where hotspots of infection break out.
In many, and maybe most cases many of you will not be near a significant outbreak and experience strong social distancing measures but there is no way of knowing where it will be breakout and where you may be spared so I believe it is not unreasonable to start preparing physically and mentally for the more serious scenarios. Those would include more lengthy and strict social distancing measures. This might result in loss of income for a period of time, difficulty getting basic necessities and shortages of medications. All experts I follow say that right now, at a minimum, people should be getting their prescriptions renewed, building up a larger supply of non-perishable foods and water, hand sanitizer, wipes, and gloves and thinking about how to care for sick relatives. This is just common sense and the earlier one does it the less panic there will be if the time comes when everyone in a city, town or state is told to stock up on supplies. Just look at what is going on in Italy, videos of cleaned out supermarkets within two days of cases reported in the area.
We are already seeing the signs of shortages and pandemic stocking in the US. Face masks have become difficult to purchase. When I I found that Amazon is essentially out of them now with only high scalping prices on meager supplies. Walmart and Target on-line are out-of-stock. I went to the local Home Depot and all the masks in the paint section where gone and there was a sign saying there was a limit per customer. Remember, this is just the result of a very small percentage of the population attempting to prepare early.
Why isn’t there more talk about this in the news?
Am I just being an alarmist? I ask myself that question all the time. What I hope that I am doing is gathering as much information as I can, sorting through it to make sure the data is legitimate and determining what sources I can trust and which are spreading fear or over-complacency and then doing a risk assessment analysis. At this time I could say that there are many outcomes that are possible and one of those cannot be excluded: that the virus will become a pandemic and cause at least mild social distress. Almost no outcome can be excluded except for the now rosy thought that we will quickly drive the virus to extinction as we did with SARS in 2003.
I am following many experts who study past and present epidemics and I watch what they are talking about and what they are doing. They are preparing and they are talking about the need for these preparations but little of what they say gets out the general public partly because it still seems like the virus is far away from us personally and there are other pressing items to talk about in the news but also because the official words from our government is that “we have it under control.” That isn’t necessarily a lie at the moment (though it is clearly putting the most optimistic spin on the data) but it’s also not providing the public with how to prepare in the event that everything is not OK. It’s not laying the groundwork for a situation with more gravity. It’s kicking the preparation step down the road which is very dangerous.
It has been reported that Trump has told his advisers not to talk about the coronavirus because it might spook the stock market and cause issues with the economy which he is worried will affect his re-election. (Update 2/26: at the time I wrote this the official US government response was to play this virus down but that has now changed in the past day) This is not the time to politicize events. By not talking about possible outcome it leads to the false impression there is no problem and then people will be shocked when the news suddenly changes. It also leaves more room for a variety of conspiracy theories and other bad information to take root. By the time the US government informs the pubic formally that this virus is coming and can’t be stopped it will likely be right upon us.
Added this paragraph after writing this letter: Less than an hour after writing the paragraph above Trump tweeted (Feb 24) the following: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!” This is on a day that the DOW is down 900 points at the time and while true there are no new reports of virus in the US, he has no way of knowing that it isn’t being transmitted in the US without us knowing given our very limited testing. I also discovered that Rush Limbaugh at nearly the same time suggested the coronavirus was being weaponized (or was originally even made to be a weapon) to get rid of Trump and then he said that “The coronavirus is just the common cold, folks.” He also suggested that it isn’t that bad because 98% of people that get it survive and barely get sick. These are irresponsible and false (many more people get very sick) words from someone that millions of people listen to. Imagine I said to you that you have a cold and you go into a room and cough and end up killing two people, would you think that was no big deal? We should hope that 2% is not the fatality rate rather than suggesting that it isn’t a big deal.
Thus far we are not preparing people calmly and rationally and little is being done to improve our infrastructure. France has already announced they will start work on a dozen or more new hospitals dedicated to COVID-19 treatment even though they only have a few confirmed cases at this time. No such talk in the US that I have heard of. We are still in the mode of: “this virus might be stopped and so don’t worry.” No, the virus wont’ be stopped (OK, maybe a 0.1% chance it still will be) before becoming common in some locations. Addendum (Feb 25): I see this morning that the White House will approve 2.5 billion dollars to combat coronavirus. That’s a nice start and sounds like a lot but previously they committed 4.5 billion to combat the Ebola virus and there never was much of a chance that that virus would become widespread in the US though it is much more deadly. If the virus becomes as common here as it is in Iran, China, South Korea and Japan 2.5 billion will be nothing compared to what will be needed.
People need and deserve to be informed of what the possible outcomes of this virus may be including best and worst-case scenarios. We should be given advice about what we should be thinking about and given plenty of advanced warning so that preparations can be made in an orderly fashion. The door for doing this well and early has already passed, which is part of the reason I am writing to you.
A second problem is that many Americans have a false sense of security. They believe we have a superior health-care system and country than other places currently effected by the virus and so it won’t be so bad here. OK, let’s grant maybe it won’t be as bad here but there is no guarantee of that, and it’s pretty clear our health system isn’t as prepared for epidemics as those in some other countries. We have a severe lack of coordination within our system at this time. We also have a Center for Disease Control (CDC) who should be overseeing this that has been seriously handicapped over the past 2-3 years. Washington has cut the CDC budget each year and completely axed several directors who oversaw worldwide pandemic research and preparation projects. Since they were looking at diseases such as Ebola and emerging viruses in other countries many in the Whitehouse saw these diseases as other countries problems and not worth spending out money on and cut the pandemic preparation programs. Vaccine development for SARS and other emergent diseases had been dropped over the years with private companies unwilling to invest in rare diseases. This neglect has led to many people being forced out or leaving for better jobs elsewhere leaving the CDC far less prepared and able to respond that it was three years ago.
The CDC is still underfunded and is woefully behind in designing and coordinating test kits. We had tested fewer than 500 people as of yesterday whereas South Korea had tested 25000 and have a testing capacity of more than 5000/day if they have to. Our capacity seems to be only a few hundred per day and samples have to be shipped to one of only four locations and takes a day or two for results. We are way behind in testing which means we are probably missing many cases since we are only testing people with direct connection to China. Canada on the other hand identified a person that had traveled to Iran and had possible symptoms and they are willing and able to test people that have symptoms no matter where they have been. Other countries at this point can be more confident they understand their own problems. We needed to authorize billions of dollars weeks or even a month ago to fully fund every possible agency and create a coordination system and yet we still don’t know who is in control and coordinating our response. I’ve looked and there is no clear oversight and decision-making process in the US. No one knows which agencies are responsible and for what parts of the response and who has the final call on important decisions. These are concerning signs that must be factored into your confidence that the US will do a better job than other countries that are dealing with the virus at this time.
This is one of those times where free enterprise/private companies doesn’t get the job done because the cost of developing vaccines fast makes it non-profitable and so the government must incentivize and just outright pay for CDC research and other private companies to turn their attention to this virus. It will take time get drugs and vaccines ready (see this article for some background about drug development: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/02/covid-vaccine/607000/ ) Every week of delay could be huge. Yes, maybe it will all turn out to be not that bad but not doing anything or the bare minimum is a huge risk to take. I would rather be wrong and have wasted money preparing than done nothing and ended up paying a massive price in lives and social upheaval.
There is growing—and correct—criticism of the Chinese government for ignoring the warnings in late December that a new virus was circulating. Party leaders played it down and held all kinds of huge parties in Wuhan which spread the disease in early January. The leaders clearly hoped that it wouldn’t be bad and that everything would be OK. They didn’t want to spend money, raise alarms or close down businesses because that would be too damaging to the economy. Now they caused countless dollars-worth more damage than was necessary if they has just taken the hit early. It easy to be over here and say they were stupid not to listen to doctors giving warnings and yet it appears our government is ignoring nearly every virologists we have warning that we need to be more prepared and proactive if we want to reduce the risk of great harm to ourselves and our economy. This is the time for making decisions for the future not what is politically expedient and gets us just to the next day. At some point the next day won’t come because of such poor decisions made in previous days.
What can you do?
I’m not talking about building bunkers or selling all your goods and moving to a mountain cabin. This isn’t the end of civilization and production of good will go on. But it does mean inconveniences, even if you are not near a viral outbreak and it does mean that some people will experience much more difficult circumstances for a time. So it would be prudent to think about what you would do in a variety of scenarios and do some planning. That planning might not include actually purchasing much now but at least knowing how you might prioritize your future purchases. You may think that the chance of your family being affected by the virus is very low–and it is. For example, maybe you live in low-population area and can have little contact with people for a while and you have job that isn’t necessary or doesn’t include working with other people. Even in this situation, you may want to think about extended family and how you could help them if some of them get sick. You can educate yourself so that you can be a calming influence. Most problems are caused by panic and poor decision making rather than the disease itself. If you are elderly, you might take more precautions than if you are young since this virus clearly effects those more than 50 with young people feeling fewer effects though they could be spreaders of the virus.
You may want to have your will in order (always good to do anyway), do you have a plan for who would take care of your kids if you are sick? If you are on medications get those prescriptions filled. These are all good things to do that will reduce your anxiety later if you should become sick or have to take care of the sick.
You should ask yourself if your job is one that could be done remotely so you can maintain employment or could you be out of work for a month or two. If you are server at a restaurant and the virus comes through your area you might expect to lose your income for weeks or even months. Knowing that is a possibility you should think about saving now.
Church leaders should plan how they might react to an outbreak in their community. How can they help members of their congregation? Maybe delivering food or other supplies. When should they cancel Church or are their ways to make the gathers of church members less dangerous for spreading the virus. Maybe two services so people can sit further apart? Should you invest now in sterilization supplies? What about visitation policies for the sick and how might funerals be conducted if people are scared to come to a large gathering? There are so many potential questions that thinking early about and having a policy to explain to people when the time comes will help members feel less anxious. In times of trouble people will look to the church for guidance both spiritual and physical. Staying current with this story is important and preparing to meet people emotional and spiritual needs will be challenging. This will be an especially stressful time for church leaders and we need to keep them in our prayers.
Final thoughts..
This might all be for naught. Maybe the virus will not spread far in the US and maybe it won’t make people as sick as it has been to this point. After all, viruses do mutate and change their characteristics over time. But to simply assume this will happen and believing it will never affect us would not be prudent. Think of it this way. How much money do you spend each year for life insurance, car insurance, health insurance, home insurance and so forth? Do you say at the end of the year when nothing happened that you wasted all that money and decide not to pay for any insurance the next year. You could spend a small fraction of that money to prepare for social distancing and possibly missing a month or two of work. It’s like an insurance plan except at the end you will have all your resources and can spend them later rather than having lost all that money. Furthermore by preparing you may be able to help a friend in need as everyone will be effected differently.
It is also possible that some places will be infected with strains of this virus that have mutated and maybe cause even more damage than we see now. One community may see little viral activity while three blocks away large numbers of people will be infected. No one can say where it will be bad how bad it will be or how long it will last. The 1918/1919 pandemic took two years for three waves of the virus to circle the globe. Today it’s easier for viruses to travel the globe but where it breaks out you can assume that it will disrupt life to some extent for several months at a time.
It is easy to be anxious and this letter will likely raise your level of anxiety. But mental and physical preparation is one of the antidotes for anxiety. Being informed is also important. If you do nothing else, please pay attention to the news about this virus so that you can make informed decisions as soon as possible. As I said before, I may be overly anxious and I don’t want to alarm but I also felt like to not to share what I have learned when an early warning was still possible would be wrong. In a few weeks or months I might feel rather foolish for writing this but I’d rather be wrong and nothing happens than be correct and I never tried to share what I knew. It is up to you to determine what or anything you should do with what I have said.
Blessings to you at this time. Let us pray that God will bring the viral assault on our frail bodies to an end quickly.
Joel Duff
PS. Permission granted to share this post in any format you wish and can do so without acknowledging me as the author.
Some links to information about COVID-19:
An comprehensive guide to what we have learned from China thus far compiled from a fact-finding mission by the WHO to China. https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf
https://www.statnews.com/tag/coronavirus/ Open-access timely articles on all aspects of the coronavirus outbreak
https://nextstrain.org/ncov The genomes sequenced and ability to look at the changes happening to the virus in various ways (bonus: you can also look at the evolution of the flu, ebola and others here).
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/…/opsdashboa…/index.html… A dashboard of sorts showing the current stats for infections etc…
https://www.statnews.com/…/two-scenarios-if-new-coronaviru…/ A week old but this article talks about two of the most likely scenarios for how this virus unfolds. The worst of the options is now becoming more likely.
https://en.wikipedia.org/…/2019%E2%80%9320_Wuhan_coronaviru… Lots of information about the virus and the outbreak here.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/index.html Center for disease control information for US situation.
A few stories about vaccine development which are both hopeful but also present a realistic view of how long it will take for that to be the answer which is why slowing the pace of viral spread will be important over the next year.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/02/covid-vaccine/607000/
Naturalis Historia 
thanks for this Joel. Timely and scary.
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Thanks, and sorry about the scary part. Its hard to find the line of here of what is possible but not time to get really scared just time to be prepared so it wont’ be as scary. I probably have far too much detail in here still which is also the scary part. I am working on a simplified version right now.
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Let me draw attention to Lenski’s series of reports of which the most recent is here: https://telliamedrevisited.wordpress.com/2020/02/22/expert-analyses-of-the-sars-cov-2-outbreak/ .Lenski Is no At pains to point out that he is not himself an epidemiologist, and that his specialised experiences with bacteria rather than viruses, but nonetheless he is obviously better informed than most of us to distil current expert opinion on these matters.
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Yes. I’ve been following him and his blog during the past month. Good information there.
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My wife’s background is human biology (actual depth is in marine bio, oh well!) … she’s been tracking this for a while. I’m personally quite interested, having been at ground zero of SARS way back when, and having had two personal encounters with extreme infectious disease treatment in the last 20 years.
Sorry that I don’t have time to dig up references for this, but the following additions seem pertinent:
1) We were curious about longevity of SARS-COVID-2 on solid surfaces. Apparently at least 3+ weeks, which is much longer than other pathogens to date.
2) Our info confirms yours in terms of influenza vs this one on fatalities: 0.1% vs ~~2% — when detected.
3) Perhaps most serious: increased testing of returning Americans from Asia is showing a growing number of people who have been infected yet are asymptomatic.
4) AFAIK, a vaccine was created within hours of the genome being sequenced. It will take some time for testing; I don’t have any info on ETA availability.
Combine #1 and #3 — this is a virus that easily spreads to entire populations.
Bottom line: looks like this will be Yet Another serious disease requiring worldwide vaccination. Perhaps the ultimate fatality rate will be much lower than 2%… but I’m not going to hold my breath for that.
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Latest info: vaccine human trials to begin in about 6 weeks… https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/25/us-health-officials-say-human-trials-on-coronavirus-vaccine-to-start-in-6-weeks.html
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A vaccine by summer is impossible, but having one before the start of the 2020/21 cold and flu season would be a godsend.
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amen
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I’m grateful for this information you’ve shared, MrPete! Has your wife’s research uncovered any information on the proportion of patients who are asymptomatic? Experts from the World Health Organization and CDC have assumed that this number would be large, but Joel’s information in another comment under this blog post indicates that relatively few infected patients are asymptomatic. Could the Americans returning from Asia actually be pre-symptomatic? Has your wife come across any other information on this?
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D Conrad, I have other far more expert friends who are working on that and several other questions.
Unfortunately, much of that kind of info, until fully vetted, is being held closely. (As in, they’re not sharing with me ;) )
I do have access to some non-public info, but it’s mostly analysis of other info that IS public, and is in the nature of nations now considered high risk, even if they have zero cases.
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Some updates with sources:
* Searching for “surface” in the WHO database reveals studies showing a NINE day survival rate on various inanimate surfaces. I cannot find a source for the rumored 3 week survival rate. https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/global-research-on-novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov
* Even in China, outside of Wuhan where it originated, the fatality rate is more like 1%. Much lower than that for populations not at risk. I haven’t found public data on asymptomatic percentages. This paper shows that in China, over 80% of cases are “mild” (whatever that means ;) ) http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/en/article/id/e53946e2-c6c4-41e9-9a9b-fea8db1a8f51
* Preprint study (not yet peer reviewed) shows the validity of using N95 respirators + hand washing by carefully trained med prof’ls IS effective. (The mask must be carefully adjusted frequently, and replaced regularly.) https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.18.20021881v1.full.pdf+html
* For those interested, here are good instructions on use of N95 respirators. Note that they are one-time-use only, and not easy to use 24/7. (I used one with a valve for pollution/odor protection in India. It was NOT easy!) https://ehs.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/N95-Respirator-Training-Handout.pdf
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Joel, this is not to discount anything you wrote, but I think it is important to point out that according to a number of medical sources, most of those dying of this virus strain (as with the flue) are very old, very young, or already have a suppressed immune system. Also, mortality figures estimated from early and likely skewed data in China may be considerably higher than those expected in the US, not just because of the reasons you cited, but also the generally less advanced health care system in China, especially in rural areas, and fewer precautions taken there during the early stages of the pandemic. Also, though people made fun of Trump for saying that the virus will likely wane in the Spring, viruses do generally spread faster during the winter. According to some studies, among the reasons for this that 1. viruses tend to live longer in dry air, 2. breathing cold air may suppress white blood cells in the mucus membranes of the nose and throat, 3. people tend to spend more time indoors and thus have more close interaction with each other more during the winter, and 4. most people have lower levels of Vitamin D during the winter due to less sunlight exposure. Sufficient vitamin D is known to be important for optimal immune system functioning. See:
https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20090223/low-vitamin-d-levels-linked-to-colds#1 and
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20151016-the-real-reason-germs-spread-in-the-winter
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very much to agree with here, except for possibly the undiagnosed Trump Derangement Syndrome. Does everything posted these days have to have some, however disconnected, comment about Trump? According to your logic, Trump would have every incentive to address, control the spread, and have a cure for this virus if his, as you imply, primary concern is winning the election. Could you not have just issued a warning with your concerns without bringing politics into it? It just cheapens your message. Stick to science, Joel. Otherwise you are just as likely to turn people off with your message as you are to educate them. Try it for once. Otherwise, a good and pertinent post.
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This post is just more of the same alarmism, bad journalism we hear all day long. You are wrong about the fatality rate of flu. It is not 1/1000 but 2/1000. That is about the same rate as Covid-19. You are also wrong about covid19 being a new virus. It is just another pulmonary coronavirus, related to SARS and very similar to a Corona batvirus described a few years ago. The only incredible part of the story is that there was no anti-pan-corona medication developed since SARS broke out in 2003. Millions are spent on virus research, but not on an antidote. Shouldn’t that be the first line of investigation? A medication against SARS would likely have been effective to Covid. An antibody blocking the entrance of corona viruses is easy to establish. Indeed, Sars and Covid19 use the same entrance, so why was it not developed? Where is science when we really need it?
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Peer, apparently you have been victimized by bad journalism. You say Covid-19 has the same fatality rate as the common flu. Even if we grant 2/1000 which is 0.2% for flu Covid-19 has been in the range of 1-3% which is 10 times or more than the flu and as I pointed out the hospitalization rate is also far higher than the flu making it a serious issue for the health care system. Your response is quite uninformed so hard to take seriously.
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Joel Duff, we can’t validly say that “Covid-19 has been in the range of 1-3% which is 10 times or more than the flu.”
* That 1-3% number is NOT based on the same kind of understanding of infection rates!
* We are discovering that many are infected without symptoms, or with minimal symptoms.
Bottom line: we don’t really know an apples-apples number yet.
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I agree and I said that hopefully it may be as low as 0.5 or so. The CDC though did conclude after coming back from China that they are not missing many cases there in which case they were very disappointed to find that it might be 3% in the Wuhan area. Yes, we don’t know, but to say it is just the same as the flu would be wrong based on data we have at hand. Maybe it will but we can’t say that right now. We can only hope that this is the case.
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Mr. Pete, thank you for pointing out the recent study that even in China is that the mortality rate is about 1% even in at-risk populations, and where the overall healthcare system is worse than ours, and many people not as well nourished. Also, The LiveScience website says that a recent China study (evidently the one you referred to) involved on about 1,100 hospitalized patients in China, found that the overall death rate was around 1.4%. Not only is that less than half initial estimates from the epicenter cases, but it too is probably much higher than the actual overall mortality rate, since there were undoubtedly many more people infected than those hospitalized. The same report says that no deaths for patients under 9 have been reported, which is of course is better than most flu viruses. I’m watching the ABC Sunday morning show now, saying it could be “10 times more deadly” than the flu, but presenting no evidence for that.. In the US, as of yesterday, there were 14 reported deaths out of 400+ that tested positive (again about 3%) but almost all the deaths were nursing home patients or others who were very elderly and had other health problems, which means the likely mortality rate in the overall population is probably far lower.
So I for one think that evidence is mounting that this virus strain is not much, if any, more deadly than a common flu virus.And let’s keep some perspective. I am sympathize over those who have gotten sick or died from this virus, so far the cases and deaths have been a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the number of people who get infected and die of the flu every year (tens of thousands in the US alone, and hundreds of thousand wordwide), yet no one is freaking about about that (with 35% of people in the US declining to even get a flu shot).
By the way, it annoys me that almost everyone keeps calling this “THE Corona virus” when it’s actually just a new strain of a large family of corona viruses known for decades, including some that cause the “common cold” and which almost everyone has had. The actual name they have given it is SARS-CoV-2 and the disease is called CoVid-19, but many in the media have been saying the virus itself is named CoVid-19, or continue to misleadingly call it “THE Corona virus.”
On Feb 25 Joel said we didn’t know if the virus would spread to every community in the U.S. in “two weeks, two months, or a year…” I said that based on data at the time, two weeks was virtually impossible, and two months very unlikely. I stick by that. Indeed, here we are two weeks later, and not only is it not in every or even most communities, the majority of U.S. states (over 30 as of yesterday), have seen not even seen any confirmed infections, let alone deaths (meanwhile, hundreds in almost every state have died of the flu). Moreover, there is every reason to believe that like most flu and cold viruses, it will fade a lot during as summer approaches. Last, even if a vaccine is not ready by the fall (and it may well be–several labs are working hard on it–I suspect that by then, when a lot more data is available, everyone will realize the current near-hysteria is overblown.
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Well what has been the American response to this? Seems like a non-response. I’m not very political, but Trump is acting like it is no big deal to try to stabilize the stock market I guess. It is a Presidential election year. What a terrible time for this to happen as if the disease wasn’t bad enough. At the end of March going into April we will see a lot of cases where those exposed will become sick. I am praying it is low. I live in a senior apartment complex, very few are taking this seriously, why? I have no idea other than it is under-reported.
70% of my neighbors are of Hispanic descent and just shrug it off while the Apartment managers cancel group activities. I talk to them and their attitude is like my son’s, an MD. Why the suppression? I feel like I’m living in Communist China. You know something is wrong when Chinese people from China say they feel safer in China than on the West Coast. The U.S. isn’t prepared for this.
Look at the response of South Korea, they’re testing any and everyone with the sniffles. The COVID-19 death rate there is less than one per cent. Taiwan isn’t far behind. Free countries that have taken this pandemic seriously, while the REAL death rate in China is a state secret, are containing the virus. Keep in mind that China’s medical system is overwhelmed. The CCP claims the crisis is over while factories are using up electricity to fool the Party overseers. Running machinery when no one showed up for work. I watched a video of EMT vans picking up bodies from residential buildings. The vans were full.
Despite claims otherwise most of the Chinese people live Third World lives. A majority of migrant workers from the countryside did not return to their places of employment after their New Year celebrations. The godless Communists were never able to get rid of Ancestor Worship so it still thrives there. Expect medicine shortages in the coming months because our leaders sold us out and most medical components are made in China. This whole thing reeks of “Made In China”.
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JImmie, how can you say in American it’s been a “non response”? We have travel bans, all kinds of screens, testing, and quarantining of anyone even suspected of being infected. It’s been the focus of countless news reports, updates and comments from medical groups, advice and news from local, state, and federal agencies, the white house, etc. Multiple labs are working on a vaccines. You can’t turn on the TV or radio without hearing Corona virus stories. What more response are you looking for? If anything I think many people are overreacting – rushing out to clean stores out of water and such, cancelling classes, meetings, sporting events, concerts, even in states like mine (Ohio) without a single confirmed infection yet, let alone death. You say S Korea is testing anyone with sniffles (which can come from any cold, allergy, etc). You really think that’s what we need to do? As I said before, so far the infections and deaths have been a tiny a drop in the bucket compared to vastly larger numbers of people who get sick and die of the flu every year,. Maybe some people are (including me) are refraining from freaking out about it in view of those reasons and all the others outlined in my last email–which suggest that the virus is likely little if any worse than the average flu. You talk about it expanding in March, but again, as warmer weather approaches, the virus will likely fade, as most do. You can bash Trump all you want, but he has to strike a balance between taking prudent measures and keeping the country informed, while trying to avert unnecessary panic. And even though the mainstream media don’t want to mention it, he’s donated $100,000 of his current salary to Corona virus research and response, and he has always donated his salary toward humanitarian and charitable causes.
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When I made the statement above a lot of things had not been done yet. Now that over 500 are infected and 20 people have died they’re are ramping up the response that they should have done a month ago. A travel ban was about the only thing done, but we now have 500 and spreading. We better start making our own antibiotics before the ones from China run out seeing as how 97% of antibiotic components come from there.
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JImmie, as I explained, a lot more IS being done now, and not just a travel ban. OK, 20 people have died, which is a shame, but again, let’s keep some perspective. At least 20,000 people (and sometimes tens of thousands more) die every year of the flu in the US alone. Moreover, why are you talking about antibiotics? Antibiotics don’t work on viruses, and for people who may develop secondary bacterial infections because they are already immune suppressed from other health problems, I believe we have plenty of medicine to handle it–probably far more than China, whose health care system is far less advanced than ours.
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actually Peer one avenue has been to take the ebola vaccine, add and adjust, and possibly we might end up with a vaccine. At least this is what i heard on the news. Your post was good. Apparently your opening line set Joel off. As far as the math, much of what we have is incomplete information. The rate seems to vary from country to country, and we will never have completely accurate rates until we can be sure we are getting the truth from China, Iran, (and North Korea. Does anybody believe there are no cases there, even considering the closed nature of the country?) So numbers aside, good points.
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My son is a Doctor and works in an urgent care 3x a week. I have literally begged him to pay attention to what the heck is going on and he blows it all off as sensationalist internet claptrap. I told him to refill all my prescriptions and double dose them. I try to explain to him that most of our generic drug components come from China and we WILL be experiencing drug shortages here soon enough if the Chinese don’t go back to work. Never mind the electronic shortages that will occur.
I do not believe for one second any numbers coming out of Communist China. The leaders have drawn a firewall around China and only allow the official news to come out. Yet there are some people getting some pictures out through virtual privacy networks to satellite internet. The new hospitals they have built are already having issues with cheap construction techniques and get wet when it rains. People violate quarantine measures and though many are staying home the government has now started going door to door and if you have any symptoms off you go to the new hospitals. Word on the ground is the new hospitals are nothing more than quarantine camps and if you don’t have the virus you soon will once you are interred.
I received this data through an internet vlog show called Laowhy86; “China Does Not Have This Under Control.” It is on YouTube and I have watched the show for over 2 years. It is or was about an American living in China. He had to leave China after the government started coming down on foreigners last year, a story onto itself and also disturbing. He came back to the United States with his Chinese wife and children. I trust his information, he and his friend SerpentZA, he is call Cmilk online have contacts in China and are just saying what they are getting back. What their real names are I don’t know as most YouTubers don’t give out their real names. The report referenced above is worth the hour it takes to watch.
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Joel wrote: “It’s very likely now that the virus will come at some point to most communities in the US. The question is when? Two weeks, two months, a year or maybe even longer? I don’t know and no one can know for certain.”
Not to minimize potential dangers, but I think we can safely rule out “Two weeks” for that degree of spreading, and that even two months pretty unlikely. Not counting Princess cruise passengers, as of today only 15 confirmed cases (and no deaths) have been reported in the entire U.S, with 10 of those in CA, with 43 states having zero cases. See: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa-coronavirus/
At any rate, president Trump is supposed to address the issue at 6 pm ET tonight.
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don’t worry Glen. Whatever he says will be wrong. lol. TDS
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Joel, several things in your statement are manifestly incorrect, even though they ARE claims often made by the political media, etc. Please re-examine your sources for these statements. I urge you to prayerfully consider whatever assumptions led you to make these remarks:
“It’s pretty clear our health system isn’t as prepared for epidemics as those in some other countries.”
Detailed investigation (led by Johns Hopkins) shows the USA is ranked #1 by far among 195 nations. While we are not #1 in every single detail area, we ARE #1 in an amazing number of them. What’s your factual critique?
Here’s the data: https://www.ghsindex.org/country/united-states/
(As a data/usability professional, I commend the charts at the bottom of that page. Switch to “Radar View” to get a good overview of up to three nations!)
“We have a severe lack of coordination within our system at this time.”
What’s your factual critique?
o Since 2018 we’ve had an updated all-government National Biodefense Strategy
(https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/National-Biodefense-Strategy.pdf)
o On January 27 2020, the White House Coronavirus Task Force began daily coordination meetings, with senior leaders from a dozen sectors. (Four days after the WHO held their own first emergency committee meeting.)
What specific coordination do you see lacking?
(https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-regarding-presidents-coronavirus-task-force/)
“We also have a Center for Disease Control (CDC) who should be overseeing this that has been seriously handicapped over the past 2-3 years. Washington has cut the CDC budget each year and completely axed several directors who oversaw worldwide pandemic research and preparation projects.”
What’s your factual critique? Is a smaller more-efficient-and-effective agency anathema in some way?
And, have you looked at the details? For example, here’s a link to the changes from 2019 to 2020. While CDC-specific budget authority has decreased, the overall spending within their purview increased from 7.3 to 8.0 billion:
https://www.cdc.gov/budget/documents/fy2020/fy-2020-cdc-operating-plan.pdf
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joel seems to be parroting the talking points of the leftist media. The overall CDC budget was NOT reduced. Only certain areas were changed and money moved to other areas. The “doctor” who was fired was NOT fired but stepped down about two years ago. There are plenty of other lies and half truths circulating out there by those with TDS. While i am sure we can always improve, but when the source country covers things up for months, lies about statistics and only recently allowed anyone in to help it is no wonder we are all scrambling to get this under control. Trashing america and the president certainly aren’t “steps forward”. Let’s calm down people and work together or you might just die alone.
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Thank you for post, I do hope people take some reasonable measures to be prepared. Saving money in anticipation of being off work for 1-2 months is an great way to start and has relatively minimal, if any, downside.
And those who do heed this quite reasonable advice should be prepared for the decrease in infections this summer. This decrease is entirely expected and should be viewed as a lull before a subsequent increase during the next cold and flu season. Next winter is when the virus should be at the worst. A vaccine could change this pattern but due to safety concerns there is still not a viable vaccine for SARS, so one for this Coronavirus is not at all guaranteed.
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I do hope that those who have criticised Joel’s warnings in these comments are now reflecting on the wisdom of their replies. Stay home and save lives folks.
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my advice to you Joel is to view anything from the CDC with jaundiced eyes. It’s little more than a mouthpiece for China at the moment, extolling them for their openness and how well they have handled this all. The WHO and CDC were only there for part of ONE day and were given barely an hour to tour the “supposed” epicenter, the meat market. As for Trump, can you even imagine how many more millions of americans would have been infected but for the travel ban? And how many more tens of thousands would have died with China allowing millions of Wuhan residents to travel across China and the rest of the world? He’s just so xenophobic. And then banning travel from Europe? How many more would have been infected and died?
Who knows, maybe this is an event the deep state planned to impose virtual martial law across the world, or contrived for a new push for globalism (boy must they hate Trump). Meanwhile our own political elite (and their in both parties) delay help for tens of millions of americans while trying to insert funding for abortion, the arts, LGBTQrstuvwxyz, and so on. The party that cares for the regular Joe indeed.
Otherwise, many of your warnings should be, and mostly are being, heeded. I too have followed this virus for months, and saw this coming long ago. It may explain why i have things that others don’t. As I said previously, your posts are fine when they just follow the science (which changes every other day), but unfortunately devolve into political whining when you get, well…..political.
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“And how many more tens of thousands would have died with China allowing millions of Wuhan residents to travel across China and the rest of the world? ”
Can you clarify this? China has allowed residents of Wuhan free travel? I ask because my nephew (Canadian) has been locked in a university in Beijing since early February. Nobody was permitted to leave the grounds and two guys who did sneak out were picked up and put in isolation in their dorms for 2 weeks.
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