So, Zhong was the man during SARS. And he has a reputation for saying what he actually thinks. So when I read that he thinks the virus will peak in a week to ten days, it got me thinking. And after a quick jog,
I realized that all the cases now are from the pre-awareness stage, which I would say
ended on January 20th, because that’s when the Chinese government came and told everyone that the new Coronavirus was transmissible human to human. It probably took less than 24 hours thereafter to change everyone’s behavior in China. So by January 22nd, every Chinese person in Wuhan was practicing good hygiene and isolating themselves as much as possible.
By January 23rd, it is likely that everywhere in China, began practicing good hygiene and being paranoid. If the virus takes 1-14 days to present symptoms with an average of seven days, then we should see exponential growth begin to slow down on Feb 1, and with new cases beginning to level out by Feb 6th. And my math is close to what Zhong said;
we should be seeing the exponential growth curve begin to level out around February 4th to 7th. However, if the exponential growth curve does not begin to curve down in China by February 8th, we’re in big trouble, because that would mean that all of the countermeasures are worthless.
They were caught flat footed by this. Hospital staff were overwhelmed. And many of them got sick, which worsened the situation. However, they’re busing in reinforcements and they’re wearing full bunny suits to make DAMN sure that no more healthcare workers get sick; healthcare workers are the most important people right now and they cannot afford to lose a single one. And hell, they're building new hospitals because there could be a quarter of a million cases around that time.
It also makes sense that the Chinese government would go ape when it became clear they had an epidemic on their hands. Even
if the virus only has a 2% kill rate, that’s a disaster. For the individual, they may see those odds and say, “I’ll be fine.” However, the death toll from half the population of China getting sick would be 14 million people dead. And I believe that left unchecked this virus could do that.
The Australians got it in a petri dish today, so they can start throwing drugs at it to see what works. And they can also start the next stage of figuring out a vaccine. What I’m saying is, there was actually a lot of good news today.
This virus could, and likely will outbreak in other countries, but it may not, God willing.
