An ounce of prevention
Mar. 1st, 2020 07:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thanateFor anyone not already following sideria, after reblogging the centennial of the Spanish Flu epidemic in Boston, she's rather aware of the problems inherent in major disease outbreaks, & has put together some recommendations on how to prepare for the coronavirus. Recommended for anyone who hasn't started considering contingency plans yet.
Here's the good news: it's not very fatal. It's looking like the mortality rate is 2% or 3% – but that's based on China's known number of confirmed cases, and given that we now know there are asymptomatic carriers, there's the possibility that there are very many more people who have contracted COVID-19 than developed symptoms, and we don't know how many of them there are. That's actually good news, if true: it means the mortality rate is even lower. It means you stand a good chance not to get sick if you catch it. And even if you do catch it, most people's symptoms are pretty mild, and even when severe, most people survive it.
No, the problem is that getting sick sucks, and also a lot of people getting that sick all at once bollixes up the works, and various parts of society will stop working so hot, and collectively we're going to have to make an all-out effort to slow transmission and that will be very socially disruptive.
Of course at present we're still on the latest Cold of Doom from school, so here's to not using up all our canned soup supply before the real excitement even gets here.
sideria, after reblogging the centennial of the Spanish Flu epidemic in Boston, she's rather aware of the problems inherent in major disease outbreaks, & has put together some recommendations on how to prepare for the coronavirus. Recommended for anyone who hasn't started considering contingency plans yet. Here's the good news: it's not very fatal. It's looking like the mortality rate is 2% or 3% – but that's based on China's known number of confirmed cases, and given that we now know there are asymptomatic carriers, there's the possibility that there are very many more people who have contracted COVID-19 than developed symptoms, and we don't know how many of them there are. That's actually good news, if true: it means the mortality rate is even lower. It means you stand a good chance not to get sick if you catch it. And even if you do catch it, most people's symptoms are pretty mild, and even when severe, most people survive it.
No, the problem is that getting sick sucks, and also a lot of people getting that sick all at once bollixes up the works, and various parts of society will stop working so hot, and collectively we're going to have to make an all-out effort to slow transmission and that will be very socially disruptive.
Of course at present we're still on the latest Cold of Doom from school, so here's to not using up all our canned soup supply before the real excitement even gets here.