Re: Corona Virus: is it the beginning of the end?
Those numbers are approximately what I've been working with. Ethin, thank you for posting them, as they give some lovely perspective.
If all you want to do is look at the population of the world and say "well, it's a tiny tiny number that's actually dying", then sure, the numbers will help you.
But I see a few factors that make me worry:
1. This thing got started in the winter, in a lot of places, which means people weren't together quite as much; now that it's summer, the chances that people try to hang out together are higher.
2. Those numbers are as low as they are precisely because of things like physical distancing, mask-wearing and the temporary shutdown of services. They'd be even lower still if people had complied better.
3. An ugly number, but work with me here. The United States represents nearly 20% of positive cases, but has a population less than five per cent of the world's population. This means that America's per-capita infection rate is much higher than a lot of other countries.
4. There is absolutely a time and a place to start relaxing your guard. Many European countries have been able to do it successfully because they handled their safety guidelines well, and while they'll still need to stay vigilant for future spikes, they appear to be coming out of the woods. America, on the other hand, is not getting better yet. Some communities, especially rural ones with little travel in and out, are pretty stable and appear safe, and that's great, but on the whole, Covid-19 is far from finished with America.
5. You're not considering some other factors that the numbers alone don't tell you. First of all, even though the death rate is far harsher overall than I was characterizing, complications in those who survive are relatively common. Critical cases are high enough that medical staff have been overworked and underprepared. The medical system is simply not well-equipped to handle huge floods of patients, and it can't handle numbers that will continue to rise. You can't just represent total deaths as a function of world population and conclude there's no problem, as that's extremely shortsighted. Next, remember that these numbers are relatively current, and that the virus isn't done yet. Those numbers will never, ever go down; they can only grow. Experts in virology suggest that by the time we get a handle on this pandemic, between 15-30% of the world's population will have gotten the virus personally. I've read this from several places, none of them with an especially leftist slant. You're looking at around 1.5 billion, if we're being a little kind. Of those, if current death statistics are to be even close, approximately 60 million will die, and hundreds of millions more will overburden the medical system.
So no, I am not pretending that 9 out of 10 people get this virus, and of those 9, several will die. That's ridiculous. Everything I've said comes not only from my analysis of the numbers I've been reading, but of my ability to do some basic math and logical extrapolation.
Many restaurants, by the way, are unwilling to do dine-in service but are happy to cook food for you and give it to you via takeout, or delivery services like Skip the Dishes, Uber Eats or DoorDash. If you do want to go to a restaurant to eat, wear your mask, for fuck's sake. These people are being paid normal wages in most cases, and are being forced to deal over and over again with foolish people who might be sick and who may be exposing them to illness. In fact, the people I feel worst for are not your average citizen, but essential workers. You know, the ones who stayed employed during the shutdown, didn't get paid extra, but had to deal with longer work weeks and ungodly amounts of workplace anxiety because they were afraid of getting sick? the ones that are being disrespected to an enormous degree by people refusing to wear masks? They kept the world rolling. Supply chains bent, but they didn't break. And the way you repay them is to say, "hail no, I ain't wearing that dang mask in this heat"? Seriously, that's just disgusting.
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