Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet

Chill Uncategorized

I don’t think these are the choices. False dichotomy. Covid-19’s fatality rate, while higher than the flu, is probably overstated. More and more evidence is pointing that way. I disbelieved this at first but the evidence is becoming more clear.

Germany for instance has reported 24,000 cases with a death rate of 0.4 percent. Chances are very high as well that there are loads more barely-symptomatic or asymptomatic people out there so my guess is that the fatality rate in Western countries will be somewhere around 0.2-0.3 percent when the final tally occurs.

Note that the death rate in Italy is so high because they only test when symptoms are severe, etc., meaning they miss most infections.

The real solution is nearly-ubiquitous testing, tracing and social distancing/quarantine for those positive or confirmed exposed.

Otherwise, there will be many millions dead as the economy utterly collapses in 2-3 months, as that is exactly what will happen. The people who disbelieve this have zero understanding of how the economy works or what its weak points are.

I’d suggest we practice social distancing for another 2-3 weeks until testing ramps up, get masks distributed (yes, they do work), do test and trace and then start up the economy again. Otherwise, we’re going to have 20-50% of the population starving in the streets.

And you think the pandemic is bad now, wait till we have 500,000 people living in Central Park in tents or rougher than that. Baby, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet compared to that.