I think the desire to assume that this is an overreaction is natural and logical. It has a sort of Bayesian logic to it. If we’ve never seen a response like this before, and superficially this seems no worse than any other pandemic in recent memory, how can this be a rationale response?
I think the problem lies with a lack of understanding of the virus itself and why it’s concerning health experts. That concept is pretty abstract.
as a certain Politician from Wisconsin pointed out, if 97-99% of the population would be fine, what’s the big deal?
the problem is that mischaracterizes the risk and what we are trying to prevent. First he mischaracterizes the death as 10’s of thousands. It would actually be 100’s of thousands of not millions. It’s also important to remember that the total cases and total deaths is almost certainly an under reporting of realty. It’s impossible to surveil everyone and our surveillance to date has been really poor.
first, this has the spreadebility of measles. It’s far worse than any common flu. Worse yet, it has complications that increase its deadliness. It was expected that as more data came in the mortality rate would drop. We haven’t seen definitive proof of that yet. On top of that, we are finding it is hospitalizing a lot more people than initial reports from China lead experts to believe would be the case. They aren’t dying, but they probably would without care.
for one thing, the current 3-4% mortality rate being reported is based on still low total numbers and with most medical services not yet overwhelmed. We do know it can spread easily enough to overwhelm medical systems and when that happens the mortality rate jumps. Based on a study I linked previously, it suggest at risk populations have a mortality rate that is more like 30% or more.
what that tells us is that the overall mortality rate for this would go up dramatically if our hospitals became overwhelmed and were unable to provide even basic support.
but it gets worse. When that happens, the entire ability to provide medical care for all needs is destroyed. That means that things like infant mortality rate will go up, mortality associated with cancer, heart disease, or diabetes will go up. Things we can currently treat and manage we won’t be able to treat and manage anymore. This would cause a domino effect where doctors begin to get sick, along with nurses, further eroding our basic healthcare system.
this is the path that we would head down with any virus that is both relatively deadly and highly contagious. Based on what we know, we have not had a virus that is both this contagious and this deadly in our lifetime.
we can’t wait until we see strong evidence of this problem to react. By then it is far too late. We must take measures to prevent it now. It’s already clear that current measures have not been enough (or at least measures up until last week were not enough).
it’s scary to think we could be facing a pandemic the likes of which the world has not seen in a really long time. This could go the way of many recent pandemics, but evidence to date suggests that isn’t true.
Of course we can’t panic either. It doesn’t help. We need to act decisively. Take it seriously. Socially isolate like none of us have ever done before. But recognize that if we do that and do it well, we can very likely stop this virus in its track.
part of that decisive action needs to be a means to ensure we can quarantine but at the same time keep aspects of the economy going. We must continue the flow of food, toilet paper, etc. we must keep hospitals going. Police, fire,etc. Those two can coexist. We can largely isolate from each other whole still making sure that the workforce needed to keep critical aspects of society running are able to do their job. I feel like those who reject what is going on might see this as a binary choice. That either everyone must shelter in place or everyone must go back to work. It doesn’t need to be like that. If most people socially isolate, then those who need to continue to do critical jobs are at less risk of getting the virus and spreading it.
and just to make clear, this is not pointed at any specific member of the forum. Just a general comment about what I think is going on psychologically.
