Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread

[SvennoJ]

vivster said:

John2290 said:
I'd be so fucking worried right now if I was an American. Trump is on the "It's only the flu" shit. Here's his tweet from a half hour ago...

So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!

Just curious, how concerned would you be if the death toll that is currently attributed to the virus was a 10th of what it is? Would you demand the same panic and measures?

Who is demanding panic?

If the death toll was less, it would actually be worse on the healthcare system, if the need for critical care stayed the same...
If the death toll was less, response would be even slower, virus spreads faster and the healthcare system would collapse even worse...

We're in this mess currently since the death rate was not high/fast enough to either stop the disease or for other countries to take it serious enough to halt it before it was too late. (To stop it that is, never to late to get through the crisis)

It can take a long time to recover from this disease, 13% of active cases need to be hospitalized to survive. The death rate is not what's going to collapse the system, yet when the healthcare system can't keep up anymore, it will go up.