So It’s a Pandemic — How Bad Could It Be?
The novel coronavirus spreading around the globe is now a pandemic in all but name. Iran is estimated (based on cases exported to other countries) to have 18,300 infected. South Korea now has 1700+ cases, Italy has found 655 infected. Around the world — excluding China and the cruise ship Diamond Princess — a large and growing percentage of these detected cases are from local community transmission, and disturbingly from unknown transmission chains.
According to the CDC, the spread of the virus in the US appears inevitable. “It’s not a question of if this will happen, but when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illnesses,”
And that is the remaining question at this point - how bad will it be when it hits. It’s clear that the virus cannot be contained, but how deadly will it be and what percentage of the population will be infected? There is no clear consensus answer for this yet , but there is reason to be concerned based on the data we do have.
It was hoped initially that the CFR of the virus could be quite low — that a significant number of mild/asymptomatic cases were being missed which would drive down the fatality rate. However, the WHO has said this no longer seems likely:
One of the hopes of people watching China’s coronavirus outbreak was that the…
