Re 50 - Am bookmarking the to see how things stand in three months.
If Covid-19 follows the path of SARS-CoV-1 this could be over by July.
SARS first appeared in November 2002. By May 2003 it’s rate of increase had peaked, by July 2003 SARS was essentially over. It was fought entirely with quarantine and social separation since there was no vaccine. We don’t remember it here because there were very few cases in the States. Worldwide there were over 8,000 confirmed cases with 775 deaths. Most were in China.
Covid-19 is the name of the current SARS outbreak, the virus causing it is known as SARS-CoV-2. By March 1st it had already infected 10 times as many people as SARS-CoV-1 but at a lower death rate; 2,800 deaths. It shares 86% of the genome of the 2002-2003 SARS bug.
What makes Covid-19/SARS-CoV-2 so dangerous is its extreme rate of transmission. It can make everyone very sick at the same time, overwhelming the medical system. There aren’t enough ICU beds and ventilators for everybody to be treated all at once. In China it was infecting a lot of healthcare workers making the situation worse.
Shutting down public life is intended to slow down the rate of transmission enough to spread out the bulge of serious cases so that the medical system has a chance at treating them. That’s what is meant by flattening the curve. Two weeks ago there were 129 confirmed US cases. Today there’s 7,300.
At this point the only known means to fight Covid is social separation and quarantine. But South Korea is reporting success with chloroquine. It’s an old drug used to treat malaria. If true that will be a godsend.