Thread by @FelicityEnders

#Covid is more infectious than #influenza, and it’s spreading like wildfire. It causes large numbers of people to need hospital care, and if they survive they often stay hospitalized for a long time. #Covid19 is probably >30 times more deadly than #flu. 1/

#coronavirus

The reason for the urgency in the US is that our hospital system is woefully unprepared. The US has fewer hospital beds per 1000 people than Italy, and because of how our insurance system works, the way hospitals make money is by staying nearly full. 2/

That means we have far less hospital capacity than we need, even ignoring issues of isolation within the hospital.
3/

In addition to the limits on hospital beds, there are very few respirators in the US, which will be needed when patients go critical. Hospital staff will have to make awful decisions about who gets the chance to survive. 4/

We are also unprepared in the US with sufficient equipment to keep hospital staff from getting infected. And if they get sick, they have to quarantine, as does anyone who’s been around them. 5/

We will soon have hospitals in the US that are unable to admit patients, so many sick folks will be treated with suboptimal care, including at home. That will drive up the death rate. 6/

And covid has an exponential spread, and people can be infected and asymptotic for quite a while (more than two weeks, perhaps over a month).
7/

Finally, Italy is reporting that while the first wave of patients were older or had health problems, the second is younger and previously healthy.

And I don’t expect a vaccine or real treatment for many moons. 8/

Last point:

If we conservatively assume only 10% of US population get infected and only 1% death rate, that’s around 330K deaths. And some indeterminate number surviving but living with seriously damaged lungs or kidneys. 9/

More likely is 30% or more get infected. Death rate is highly debated, but let’s say it’s only 1%. That’s more like 1M dead in the US alone. And that’s probably still low. And there are still the organ damaged survivals to deal with. 10/

So what do we do?

We fight this by extreme “social distancing” starting today, so we don’t break our healthcare system. That slows infections and people get hospitalized in a slower wave. 11/

We are not doing this for ourselves. We are doing this for our country. And we need to start right now.12/

flattenthecurve.com

*asymptomatic