Coronavirus Intro: be prepared.

Much of this was wrong. This was when I still Trusted

im not a doctor. i am researching and reading to try and form a coherent picture to share so you can make up your own mind

I wish that everything I'm about to say turns out to be completely wrong, and that three months from now we'll all laugh about how paranoid i was being...

It's very possible that I'm wrong, but in a situation of extreme risk it is much much better to prepare needlessly than to be caught unprepared by a black swan event

The situation is very volatile and not everything I've read can be 100% verified. I'm attempting to reconstruct events to the best of my ability and will update as new information becomes available. In my notes, which I'll share. I'll try to communicate the strength of my conviction for the claims i make.

I believe coronavirus is a much bigger threat than is being communicated to us by media. We need to start taking it much more seriously. We need to begin thinking about how to mitigate the virus' impact on our families.

Official numbers are 1000 dead, 43,000 confirmed cases, 13 of them in the US.

what does coronavirus do to you

coronavirus vs other virus

The R0 transmission rate and case fatality rate are some of the attributes doctors use to evaluate epidemics. It's difficult to know these because coronavirus is brand new and because Chinese reporting is extremely unreliable. Imperial College London estimate the case fatality rate in China to be 18% !!! which would explain the draconian measures they are taking. Thankfully outside of China the same researchers so far estimate the CFR to be from 1.2 to 5.6% which is much lower but still dangerous.

coronavirus transmission

coronavirus incubation period

The question is, can the US prevent coronavirus from spreading through the population here, and what will happen here if they cant?

I believe we have to at least prepare for the possibility that they cant. In my opinion there are almost certainly asymptomatic or weakly symptomatic Americans walking around right now, spreading the virus and we will only see the consequences one to two weeks from now.

Coronavirus spreads to Hong Kong...

The US is not China, obviously, but we can look at some of the measures they're taking to combat the spread of the virus: The high rate of transmission and 20% case rate fatality rate help explain the lengths China is willing to go to combat the spread of coronavirus: hundreds of million people are now under some sort of home-lockdown or quarantine. Whole neighborhoods are being sprayed with disinfectant.

In England the NIH has asked for quarantine powers and acknowledged that the virus will be with them for the months to come.

the department of defense coronavirus

If coronavirus is not contained right now the US will have to institute many of the same restrictive policies and begin to quarnatine infected people to prevent transmission. In such a case people need to be prepared to stay at home for a month or more and to wear n95 or p100 rated masks or respirators along with other protective clothing when venturing out to prevent the spread of the virus.

Stay tuned for updates.