More Fun With Math

Over at Bayou Renaissance Man blog, Peter (who, per usual, is taking a rational approach) and commenters were discussing the Kung Flu, and its mortality rate.

It's 2-4%, with an average of 3%.
The ones hospitalized, by definition, are the most serious cases.
That makes their numbers look worse than 3%, but they're not, necessarily.

It's probably too late to contain it, even with a border wall. But a wall will help against everything.
Criminals.
Drugs.
Etc.

But looking at flu, with a 0.1% mortality, this is about 30 times worse.
That would be 1.5M deaths in the US in a year.
And perhaps as many as 9M.

Compared to 50K US flu deaths/yr that's definitely a thing.
The hospital system in the US skates by on a razor's edge in normal times.
Trust me on this.

You throw in a bonus pandemic, and you can definitely cancel Christmas.
We'll be treating people for this in tents, in the parking lot, all year long, until it burns itself out, or they develop an effective vaccine.

1.5M US Kung Flu deaths means another 150K in CA alone, for example.
That's 3K dead/week. That's about 50/county, one to three/day in every hospital ER in this state alone (CA has 58 counties, and 430 hospitals from Oregon to Mexico.).
And for every death, there will be 33 more people infected, 2/3 will probably come to an ER, and 1/3 of them serious enough to need hospitalization.
Another death/day, 20 additional visits, and 11 more admits daily, all year, is a yuuuuuuuuuuuge impact. For everyone, from broken toes to heart attacks and strokes.
In every ER, everywhere it goes. (At last look, there were 42 states already sending Kung Flu test samples to CDC. So 84% of the country already has legit concerns, right now. That's addressing reality, not panic. Recognize the difference.)

You'd better hope this doesn't get here.
And if it does, and it goes pandemic, cancelling Christmas is going to be reality, not doom-and-gloom.

That's how the napkin math works out, middle case, if this becomes a pandemic like the annual flu is.
It could be better. Like a total nothingburger.
I could also be worse.
Like 9M deaths.

Wee bit of variance there.
Plan as you see fit.
And remember how your neighbors act when there's going to be a hurricane, or a blizzard.
That's Joe Average, 24/7/365/ever.

If you haven't already got N95 or better masks, forget about them.
1) They're mostly made in China
2) as of last week, they're a "strategic national resource" for China
3) with tens to potentially hundreds of millions of people on quarantine lockdown there, they won't be going to work there to make more, nor exporting any even if they do.

Expect that state of affairs to last until about 2021 or 2022.
No, really.

Oh, and Wash. Your. Hands.
Like we told you last month.