Why precautions matter

[donner]

If anyone is interested in taking a deep dive into the virus issue, this is an interesting article that is very statistic heavy. It spends a good bit of time talking about the difference between 'true cases' and 'diagnosed cases' as well as comparisons between countries and the different approaches taken.

Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now

Perhaps the big takeaway, though, is that some of the social distancing measures aren't really meant to stop the spread of the virus, but to limit the speed and to keep health systems from becoming overwhelmed.

Around 20% of cases require hospitalization, 5% of cases require the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), and around 1% require very intensive help, with items such as ventilators or ECMO

The problem is that items such as ventilators and ECMO can’t be produced or bought easily. A few years ago, the US had a total of 250 ECMO machines, for example.

So if you suddenly have 100,000 people infected, many of them will want to go get tested. Around 20,000 will require hospitalization, 5,000 will need the ICU, and 1,000 will need machines that we don’t have enough of today. And that’s just with 100,000 cases.

That is without taking into account issues such as masks. A country like the US has only 1% of the masks it needs to cover the needs of its healthcare workers (12M N95, 30M surgical vs. 3.5B needed). If a lot of cases appear at once there will be masks for only 2 weeks.