No one can see into the future, but there are plenty of people still in denial so I thought I would try to share some insight.
So what’s the current plan moving forward? We have shifted into a phase of social distancing. It’s pretty straightforward, we are trying to minimize transmission of the virus by attempting to minimize interactions with other people.
Why is this important? Ideally, we want to flatten the curve.
This graphic shows the number of cases over time in relation to hospital carrying capacity. This capacity line represents the availability of hospital beds and equipment such as ventilators. By flattening the curve we want to use social distancing to decrease the number of cases while extending the timeline in the hopes of maintaining a demand that is lower than the available capacity.
The Coronavirus was believed to have an R0 value of 2, meaning, on average, for ever person that is contagious 2 more individuals will become infected. The World Health Organization also formed a mortality rate of 3.4%. Both of these figures are highly disputed, and there is not enough available data to know the exact figure. Anthony Fauci believes the US mortality rate to be closer to 1%. According to Mark Lipsitch, Harvard professor of epidemiology, 20% to 60% of the worlds adult population with contract COVID-19. I don’t have demographic numbers for the worlds population over the age of 17, but the worlds population is 7.58 billion. Going conservatively, 20% would equate to 1.516 billion. The average death toll at 1% would be 15.16 million people. At 60% the number of infected would average 4.548 billion which translates to 45.48 million deaths on average.
Extrapolating for the city of Knoxville’s population of 853k at a 20% rate is 170.6k, bringing an average mortality rate at just above 1.7k. Those over the age of 80 already have a 20% chance of death so 1 out of 5 would die on average. Recovery time from the virus averages anywhere from 2-6 weeks. So the demand for hospital capacity would roughly be 5 percent of 168.3k for a 2-6 week of duration per person (8,415). Now we’re talking about indirect deaths from normal complications (car wrecks, surgery’s, etc.) for people that can’t find adequate treatment. This would likely cause a massive jump in death rate that would impact far more than just the elderly. Even if you don’t agree with the estimated rate of infection, feel free to adjust it to a very modest 5% (42,650 people infected). It’s still far too large.
So yeah, this has the potential to be a really big f!cking deal.
So what’s the current plan moving forward? We have shifted into a phase of social distancing. It’s pretty straightforward, we are trying to minimize transmission of the virus by attempting to minimize interactions with other people.
Why is this important? Ideally, we want to flatten the curve.
This graphic shows the number of cases over time in relation to hospital carrying capacity. This capacity line represents the availability of hospital beds and equipment such as ventilators. By flattening the curve we want to use social distancing to decrease the number of cases while extending the timeline in the hopes of maintaining a demand that is lower than the available capacity.
The Coronavirus was believed to have an R0 value of 2, meaning, on average, for ever person that is contagious 2 more individuals will become infected. The World Health Organization also formed a mortality rate of 3.4%. Both of these figures are highly disputed, and there is not enough available data to know the exact figure. Anthony Fauci believes the US mortality rate to be closer to 1%. According to Mark Lipsitch, Harvard professor of epidemiology, 20% to 60% of the worlds adult population with contract COVID-19. I don’t have demographic numbers for the worlds population over the age of 17, but the worlds population is 7.58 billion. Going conservatively, 20% would equate to 1.516 billion. The average death toll at 1% would be 15.16 million people. At 60% the number of infected would average 4.548 billion which translates to 45.48 million deaths on average.
Extrapolating for the city of Knoxville’s population of 853k at a 20% rate is 170.6k, bringing an average mortality rate at just above 1.7k. Those over the age of 80 already have a 20% chance of death so 1 out of 5 would die on average. Recovery time from the virus averages anywhere from 2-6 weeks. So the demand for hospital capacity would roughly be 5 percent of 168.3k for a 2-6 week of duration per person (8,415). Now we’re talking about indirect deaths from normal complications (car wrecks, surgery’s, etc.) for people that can’t find adequate treatment. This would likely cause a massive jump in death rate that would impact far more than just the elderly. Even if you don’t agree with the estimated rate of infection, feel free to adjust it to a very modest 5% (42,650 people infected). It’s still far too large.
So yeah, this has the potential to be a really big f!cking deal.
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