Originally Posted by Michael:
I've come to some conclusions over the last few days and weeks and do not think people should be panicking. The Coronavirus seems to me to be a lot like the common flu with the exception that the common flu has a vaccine, that many take every year including the elderly. Since the Coronavirus does not have a vaccine, the elderly and those with compromised immune systems may have problems.
I believe that many of us with healthy immune systems should be just fine. There is a caveat to this- "IF" the vaccine is not implemented sooner than later, the heath care system could be overloaded. There are only so many ICU, hospital beds and respirators in the US. Like with the flu, pneumonia can be fatal if not treated. Sometimes a respirator and ICU are needed in one's recovery.
While I don't believe wearing a face mask is prudent at this time, there may be a reason to use one in the future if the hospitals and heath services become overwhelmed. Then there may be many more infected individuals in the general population that should be in hospitals or in supervised quarantine. That would make us much more prone to infection.
As a further note, I have been watching the numbers of infected and mortality rates for over a month. While my calculations may be skewed for several reasons- from what I have observed, I have seen the infected rate go from 40,000 to 110,000 in a month's time. That is a three-fold progression.
If you use a calculator and start with 40,000 as of February, and multiply it by three each month, by next January there could be 7 billion infected on the planet.
While that seems a bit absurd, the math is correct. Now, I'm sure there will be better cleaning, sanitizing, government involvement and possibly cures and vaccines before then. It still is a chilling reality if this virus is left unchecked.
I looked on the CDC website about the H1N1 virus that rattled the world in 2009. I'll post below the final findings. It's interesting to watch news reports on youtube regarding that.
"To calculate the burden of 2009 pandemic influenza A (pH1N1) in the United States, we extrapolated from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Emerging Infections Program laboratory-confirmed hospitalizations across the entire United States, and then corrected for underreporting. From 12 April 2009 to 10 April 2010, we estimate that approximately 60.8 million cases (range: 43.3-89.3 million), 274,304 hospitalizations (195,086-402,719), and 12,469 deaths (8868-18,306) occurred in the United States due to pH1N1. Eighty-seven percent of deaths occurred in those under 65 years of age with children and working adults having risks of hospitalization and death 4 to 7 times and 8 to 12 times greater, respectively, than estimates of impact due to seasonal influenza covering the years 1976-2001. In our study, adults 65 years of age or older were found to have rates of hospitalization and death that were up to 75% and 81%, respectively, lower than seasonal influenza. These results confirm the necessity of a concerted public health response to pH1N1."