Medical Association president and legislator Lo Wing-lok says it is too late for Hong Kong to follow Singapore and implement forced isolation to try to control the outbreak of viral pneumonia.
!!!!!!!
Lets make a few simple assumptions (a full analysis would be much more complex). Doubling time = 10 days, 300 people in Hong Kong are infected as of today.
That would mean we would have 2,400 cases in one month. Probably low enough to keep the lid on, and the hospital system can probably still cope (sort of). Anything that can possibly be done to isolate infected people should have been already instituted by this point (at the latest!).
If it continues to double every 10 days, in two months we will have 76,800 cases. Hong Kong will have panicked, and the hospital system will have been overwhelmed. World travel restrictions will have been instituted.
So... What is the doubling time for this disease, and what is the death rate once the hospital system has been overwhelmed?
Sure hope we never get to find out...