Thread by @DarcyBurner

[1] I live, work, & run a biz in the Eastside suburbs of Seattle which are ground zero for SARS-CoV-2 aka #CoronaVirusSeattle. Here are the things not being talked about enough:

1) Local hospital isolation rooms are full of COVID-19 patients who haven’t yet been reported.

[2] We are quickly approaching the current capacity of the hospitals to treat people.

There are far more cases than are being acknowledged; based on patterns of spread seen in China & reported in the WHO report (who.int/docs/default-s…) we are probably looking at 1k-2k cases &

[3] between 50 and 150 people hospitalized on oxygen &/or ventilators because of the disease.

The people who aren’t hospitalized are currently spreading the virus largely unchecked, and right now have no way to get tested.

[4] This is an exponential growth problem. Roughly every 6 days, we get another generation of infections that’s more than 2x times the size of the last generation. So 1k->2k->4k->8k->16k->32k->64k->128k->256k by sometime in April. 20% of those people need hospitalization.

[5] 20% of 256k is about 50k people hospitalized. From this one cluster spreading. And it’s clear there is more than one cluster spreading in the US right now. We don’t have that many hospital beds or respirators.

[6] In China, they slowed the spread by doing massive testing, closing schools and workplaces, and contact tracing every case including the mild ones. That path is really hard for the US to follow.

There are some policy things that could be done to limit the damage.

[7] Policy item #1: make Coronavirus testing & treatment free for everyone (probably via Medicaid). You want to catch & isolate everyone case.

Policy item #2: Get massive numbers of effective test kits into the hands of docs & clinics ASAP. Fly them in from Germany or China.

[8] Every day of delay in testing people, the virus spreads to more people. Time is of the essence.

Policy item #3: Figure out a way to keep money in the pockets of anybody who stays home sick because of this. People need to pay rent and buy food, and this is a societal crisis.

[9] Policy item #4: Move quickly to keep businesses affected by this afloat. Businesses will be crippled by supply chain problems, people out sick, customers in isolation. Make SBA disaster relief loans widely available for any business who needs them.

[10] Cancel large gatherings and school sooner rather than later in areas of outbreak. Yes, it’s super inconvenient, but will also be inconvenient when kids have parents die of this because the child brought the infection home & there were no more hospital beds for the parent.

[11] Mandate that insurance companies cover 90 days of prescriptions now, & figure out how to do delivery of prescriptions & food.

This is going to be bad, but how bad it is will depend a lot on whether policy makers grit their teeth & do what’s needed.