For those still not taking this seriously, here's a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association by representatives of the Chinese CDC about COVID-19. I'll give the important TL;DRs in subsequent tweets.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/…
jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/…
Takeaways: case fatality rate was 2.3%. (That's ~23 times that of seasonal flu.) Severe cases were 14%, critical 5%. (Those were the ones requiring hospitalization and supportive care.) About a 15% case fatality rate in patients 80 or over.
Key quote:
"COVID-19 rapidly spread from a single city to the entire country in just 30 days. The sheer speed of both the geographical expansion and the sudden increase in numbers of cases surprised and quickly overwhelmed health and public health services in China[...]"
"COVID-19 rapidly spread from a single city to the entire country in just 30 days. The sheer speed of both the geographical expansion and the sudden increase in numbers of cases surprised and quickly overwhelmed health and public health services in China[...]"
This isn't "just like the flu". It's much more contagious, and over 20x more deadly. A ridiculous fraction of those with symptoms need hospitalization to survive, and that leads to overload of most hospital systems, which simply lack the capacity needed to deal with it.
Also importantly (and this isn't in the article), the disease is past containment at this point. It has spread worldwide. And for the most part, the US goverment cannot actually claim it isn't here, because it is doing essentially no testing and thus lacks the data to say that.
Now, here's an important caution. DO NOT PANIC. Panic is *never* useful. Panic kills your ability to make rational decisions about how to behave. There is *never ever* a time to panic, full stop.
And really, just don't. Being rationally cautious and concerned here is reasonable. Thinking about how to calmly prepare without delay is reasonable. No, freaking out isn't useful. Period. Ever. Stay calm.
