And highlighting the flawed math would also be helpful.
The fact is, we can either be heedless, panic, or reasonable. I get the problem and that we should not bury our heads in the sand. Yet, when I see people pushing a climate change-like panic over coronavirus in the US that is equally void of facts but equally packed with specious assumptions, we should call a time out.
Is it your belief that the dozen cases we have (and the however many undiagnosed cases) will lead to hundereds of thousands of dead on our shores?
There are over 30K confirmed cases, the vast majority of them in one city with only 11 million people. The first city they locked down. You are using a ratio of confirmed cases to total population which might be legitimate after the thing has run its course, but this early with such a long incubation period, symptomless contagiousness and other known factors, is pretty much meaningless. Maybe in a few weeks it might be something to look at.
If we apply that 6 basis point chance to 22.5MM who sought treatment for influenza (which is more comparable to the quarantined lot), you get 13,500 people contracting coronavirus. If we apply a 2.5% fatality rate, we get 338 dead people in America.
WHV is more transmissible than the flu and you have to apply the 6 basis points to the entire exposed population, just as you did for the quarantined population in China, not just the people that caught the flu badly enough to seek treatment.
Is it your belief that the dozen cases we have (and the however many undiagnosed cases) will lead to hundereds of thousands of dead on our shores?
As I stated it appears that we have containment outside of China. That being said, containment can fail and there are plenty of idiots that would carelessly expose others or even deliberately do so. There is one guy that did exactly that and caused quarantine for some 4000 other people. So my message has been: this is NOT the flu. It has significantly different characteristics. It is more deadly by orders of magnitude, spreads faster and has stealth capabilities. But it is not time to panic. Just be prepared and vigilant. I also think that Western countries will deal more effectively with it than China has. We have better infrastructure and more capability. That doesn't mean this isn't a crisis, and the people that insist it's a nothing-burger are simply spreading ignorance.
It sounds like we're both saying "Don't panic, but be vigilant." I think that's the right message at this point. I believe if the world can maintain containment we can get ahead of this thing, but I think the news out of China is just going to be bad for a while. And I also take the PRC's numbers with a large grain of salt.