Covid-19 Has Gone Viral

The cat is out of the bag

UPDATE: follow up blog post here:

https://medium.com/@michaelflaxman/spring-is-coming-6200c64eb079

I’ve been doing a lot of research on Covid-19, and seeing how serious this is getting I thought I’d post an update for my friends with some of the data I’ve found most informative.

I’m not a medical expert, and so much of the info we have is imperfect/changing. Properly cited corrections are always appreciated.

At a high level, here is the current risk that you will die if you get Covid-19:

(source, with the original data coming from here)

Some noteworthy takeaways:

• Most young (and healthy) people have little to worry about
• The elderly are at high risk, if you’re in a nursing home you’re a sitting duck. Comorbidities appear to increase risk as well.
• There are currently no known deaths of children under 10, which is the opposite of H1N1.

Many people look at these numbers and say “I’m young/healthy, so I’ll be fine.” That’s probably true, and it was my conclusion as well. While you may survive, one thing to keep in mind is that it’s possible Covid-19 will lead to long-term lung problems:

It’s important to point out that this is still quite uncertain (source)

Where it gets far messier is that for your parents/grandparents to survive may require weeks in an ICU, and there are only so many beds available. Once our hospitals get too crowded, the death rates quoted above will no longer be available.

(source)

It’s a dangerous predicament when the people who most need society to embrace social distancing are the most vulnerable ones who are least capable of acting on it (can’t isolate themselves as they require care).

So, how badly does this thing spread? Keep in mind that the virus has a long incubation period (5–7 days on average), and many people will have no symptoms at all. This might make you think it’s innocuous, but for some (see above) it’s fatal. If we look at what happened in Hubei, we see this means that as the virus spreads, positive cases are just the tip of the iceberg. For this reason, new diagnoses increased massively after China shut down 16 cities, but (fortunately) new cases began to decline a week later:

(source)

While China originally buried it’s head in the sand and threatened early doctors who tried to spread awareness about the virus, the country took unprecedented steps to stop the virus that certainly hurt their economy. Anyone who says “this is just the flu” should read this tweet-storm:

(source)

The good news is that not only did China buy the rest of the world time (which may have been squandered), but their extreme efforts showed that it’s possible to beat this thing. Unfortunately, most of the rest of the world seems like it’s taking a wait-and-see approach, with somewhat predictably disastrous consequences:

Aggressive action here does seem warranted (source)

The situation in Italy has gotten quite dire recently, with the whole country now under nationwide quarantine and the medical system extremely stressed in Northern Italy:

(source)

Here is what their data looks like if you drill into the numbers.

Important counter-arguments are that the Italian population is older and more likely to smoke. (graph source)

So, how does the US stack up? Looking at the graph above, we can see that if we experience the same growth rates as Italy, we’re less than 2 weeks behind them. Since we test far less than other countries, it’s hard to know:

(source)

As of 9:15pm UTC on March 11th, the CDC website shows 938 cases. The table above is now a few days outdated. This private website may have more up-to-date information.

It’s important to stress that we don’t have all the information and the facts on the ground could change. For example, it might be that spring/summer heat is enough to help contain the spread of this disease but that’s not clear. Perhaps we’ll get a miracle vaccine in 6 months, but that seems very unlikely.

So, what should we do? In the words of legendary Silicon Valley investor Paul Graham (who is an expert in viral growth):

(source)

I don’t want to see a bunch of lost economic activity (flights, hotels, restaurants, schools, concerts, theatres, etc) harming peoples’ livelihood and lowering their quality of life, but I also don’t want to see a bunch of Covid-19 cases overrunning our medical system and leading to a lot of preventable casualties. My prediction is that if we don’t take aggressive action now to promote social distancing, we’re going to experience both. I really hope to be wrong.