Quote:
Originally Posted by GullFoss
I think consensus is maybe 4,000 cases in US at this time, most of which are mild but also undetected. But it doubles to triples every week and US won't have full nationwide testing available for anywhere for 2-8 weeks. Unfortunately, when exponential growth is 100% per week, that 6 weeks is the difference between Korea (who has the problem under control) and Italy (which has done full scale lock downs and has a hospital system that is leaving old people and young people with preexisting conditions to die)
4,000 x (2^2 weeks) = 16,000 - no big deal
4,000 x (2^8 weeks) = 1,000,000 cases - near nationwide lock-downs are an inevitability unless they do aggressive social distancing
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This is making the assumption that COVID-19 won't disappear with warmer weather like the flu does - which they don't know yet
We are currently in the late stages of flu season - if this virus has the same seasonality it could die off or at least slow to the point where it's manageable while they develop a vaccine