Originally posted by dlh Going pretty far out on the limb, there, aren't we? I suggest you check what I wrote and see if I said anything at all about what 'ought to be done', before laying into me about what I think 'ought to be done'.
Here it is:
Originally posted by dlh deaths from corona virus is nothing compared to deaths from the irresponsible use of motor vehicles. But no one panics about motor vehicle deaths, do they?
That's "what you wrote" that is so deeply ignorant and wrong.
The math on epidemics implies that people must take significant, perhaps even draconian actions BEFORE the death toll rises. With a current doubling time of about 4 days and a 2-3 week delay between exposure and death, the death toll is a severely lagging indicator of severity of the problem.
If government/society/individuals don't act until deaths from coronavirus equals deaths from motor vehicles (about 39,000), the results will be truly horrifying. Waiting until there are 39,000 COVID-19 deaths before doing something ensures that the number of latent and developing cases in the population is high enough to kill at least 16X that many (576,000 in the US).
However, even that estimate is the optimistic number because it assumes the 39K response halts all further infection (HA!) and that all the existing/exposed/developing cases have the same access to hospital beds, ICUs ventilators, etc. as the early cases did. But, in reality, most of those post-39k cases will face inadequate treatment, no ICU beds, no ventilators, and 5X-10X higher death rates.
So now we're looking at the potential for 2.5 to 5 million deaths in the US in the space of a few of months under that "lets wait till things look bad to act" strategy.
As @Serkevan noted, traffic accidents are not wildly infectious so comparing the existing death tolls to optimize the reaction is wildly misleading.
Originally posted by dlh This is not the most serious problem facing the world today
What other problem in the world today has the potential to double or treble this year's death toll in the US if the response is delayed?
Originally posted by dlh But my observation wasn't about disease control, it was about panic control.
There we do agree but aside from the bizarre fixation on hoarding toilet paper, people's recent buying habits seem exactly what they ought to do under that realistic case that most people do not have 6-8 weeks food at home. It only looks like panic because grocery stores generally only carry 4 weeks inventory at a time so they really couldn't handle everyone trying to do 6-8 weeks shopping in a couple of days.
Moreover, given that: 1) the US has totally botched the testing of people for disease; 2) people can be infectious with no symptoms (before, during, and after having COVID-19), the only prudent action is to practice social distancing because any one you meet could well be infectious. That prudent act of social distancing does imply that large swathes of the economy (air travel, restaurants, theaters, festivals, schools, churches, etc.) will be curtailed either voluntarily or by government edict.