Thread by @kmx411

As the virus makes its way to CAN/US, everyone should do their own research and decide how they want to react

@BillGates mentioned there's been 10x more cases than SARS in 1/4 of the time, so we should take this seriously:

Here's a dump of things I think are worth mentioning:

On testing and spread in the US/Canada:

- US has only done 400-500 tests, confirmed 66 cases. South Korea did over 3000 tests / day, 3000 confirmed cases

- Obviously our count of confirmed cases is low. You can't confirm cases if you don't test them.

- Here's an example of a US person who travelled to Japan and was denied the option of even being tested, although they showed symptoms (reddit.com/r/nyc/comments…)

- 4 of the US cases have no travel history

- First US death happened today (50 yo man)

- I think it's more widespread here than reported. Still probably nothing to worry about, but it can go exponential.

- If it goes exponential we'll have trouble. In China they can arrest people, close roads, weld people into their homes, etc.

- Here that would never fly

On Egypt:

- Ontario's 8th case is a traveller from Egypt but Egypt has 1 confirmed case.

- No chance Ontario person came in contact with that exact 1 person

- 20 people from France went to Egypt, 2 now have it

Takeaway: don't trust the counts for rest of world either

On spreading:

- 2 to 25 day incubation period, which means people can be walking around spreading it without knowing

- When in the open and not contained, it's exponential. In Wuhan the average person would spread it to 2-4 others

- 2 cases gone exponential for a month is over 2B cases (wont be this bad, but helps to picture exponential v linear growth)

On degree of sickness:

- This guy had it and said it felt like a tight chest ( washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/0… )

- This 21 year old had a shitty time and it lasted from Jan 17 to Feb 7 (theguardian.com/world/2020/feb…)

- 2.9% death rate in center of China breakout and 0.5% in outside areas

- It’s 3.6% for those ages 60 to 69; 1.3% for 50 to 59; 0.4% for the age group 40 to 49; and just 0.2% for people ages 10 to 39. Nobody 9 and under has died of this coronavirus to date.

livescience.com/new-coronaviru…

- I see lots of media saying "it's just the flu". I wouldn't listen to this belittlement

- Flu death rate is 0.05%, this is 10 - 60X worse from numbers above

- There is a vaccine for the flu, there is not for this

- If you're young, you may be thinking "oh I'm safe". But if you get it, and you talk to your mom or pass an old person on the street, you could transfer to them, and their chances are much lower than yours.

On wearing a mask:

- CDC says this is useless in prevention

- If you have it, it'll help avoiding you spreading it, but really you should be self quarantining

cdc.gov/coronavirus/20…

On stocking up:

- We stocked up on a few things
- Get stuff you'd use anyway (TP, shampoo, soap) and foods you'll enjoy that last semi long (boxed oat milk, frozen nuggets, etc.)
- Worst case you don't have to grocery shop for a few weeks
- Best case you can hide in your home

On what we're doing:
- Don't go to concerts, out to eat, gym, etc.
- WFH
- Stock up and enjoy video games, netflix, and home cooked meals for a few weeks until we have a better picture of things

Being home can be fun, lmk if you want to play wifi smash

On investments:

- Already had supply shock when China shut down. I'm sure most companies with physical goods are low on inventory and there's going to be re stocking lag

- If it goes exponential here, there will be a demand shock

- Interest rates could lower to increase spend

- If it gets to a "70% of population" level, I wonder what happens with money. Nobody will want to touch cash, will systems collapse?

- Buy some crypto, let's see if it stands to be the decentralized financial system we need

On the 1918 Influenza:

- My friend @imrane brought this up, but in 1918 there was a flu with a 2% mortality rate. Countries were not reporting honest numbers apart from Spain so everyone thought only Spain had it and it was called "Spanish Influenza"

- The US didn't want to panic people so they still held parades and whatnot. One particular parade caused a huge spread in Philadelphia resulting in over 12.5k deaths

- Not sure how but we need to get a grasp of what the true numbers are around the world, so we don't repeat this

On how bad this could get:

- @balajis has been tweeting that 40 - 70% of the world could end up infected. If the upper bound happens, and 1% of them die, that'd be 50M deaths

- @BillGates says a cure will take months and billions of dollars to distribute

Overall it may not get bad, it could just pass over the next few weeks but life should be lived in probabilities and even if there's a sliver of a chance it goes exponential, there's no harm in being informed and prepared

Friend sent me pictures of the pasta shelf at their Safeway in California, also no rice left