"A recent CDC projection estimated that the U.S. coronavirus epidemic could infect between 160 million and 214 million people over a period of more than a year —
and kill anywhere from 200,000 to 1.7 million people in the country. A top CDC disease modeler presented the estimates to CDC officials and epidemic experts during a conference call last month,
the New York Times revealed on Friday.
The scenario did not factor in the efforts now underway to address the epidemic, but rather what could happen if no action was taken to slow the spread of the disease."
Outside of issues that I have with healthcare centering mainly around the lack of investigation towards cheaper and more organic materials, there is nothing wrong with this projected range. It is a lot more reasonable to assume a range between these two numbers, than to assume a position on either extreme which would be doomsday or denial of something that could be serious.
I think it is a reasonable assumption that without isolation measures, we would easily be getting close to 200,000. The trauma from reality like this within our community and healthcare system would result in the potential for increasing error. If we consider the experience of post traumatic stress and try to visualize a world where we are about to reach 200,000 deaths across the country initiating changes to our lifestyle as a way of preventing reaching 500,000, the psychological experience has also been minimized with a shelter in place even when you consider the experience of loneliness or financial loss.
Loneliness is nothing when people are still not facing a reality that gives them a reason to believe that it is possible that things will get worse or that many more people will continue to die. As it is, we are so far from reaching the point where the number of deaths could produce a traumatizing community response that people are going out and complaining about having to stay home in groups.
Also, when you are pointing out that the CDC said that the worst case scenario is 1.7 million even if you are admitting that this their worst case scenario and not their prediction, you are still creating a misleading message that is no different than the approach of mainstream media that everyone complains about. That is exactly what they do. Instead of presenting both sides, they present the information available to tilt the perspective towards the one they want you to have rather than showing you all the information available.
Newly revealed projections warn of a massive potential toll in the U.S., but the worst-case estimate doesn’t factor in recent efforts to respond.
nymag.com
Still, as I have said before, while this helps in terms of capacity. This has the potential to bankrupt hospitals in the long run that have shut down many services they provide that actually make money. After doing some thinking about this, I don't know that I think it would be a bad thing for our healthcare system to get smaller. I don't know that it would be terrible for our system to adjust to making less money. What if that could result in cheaper healthcare? That is outside of the fact that it is fantastic to see them working on certain treatments because of the pressure this situation is created? There are really so many good things that could come out of this, I struggle to find the reason why people around a place like this would be complaining so much.
Outside of this, there is still the very real issue with supply shortages even with reduced numbers like this. I have seen articles listing hospitals that are saying they will take handmade isolation gowns. I don't know if you can understand what a statement like this means in the United States where everything that can be used has to be up to a certain code or standard. People are sewing isolation gowns in their own homes and giving them to hospitals. It is an absolutely absurd thing for me to think of saying, but that is what they are doing.
So there are clearly many things that need to be fixed within our system considering the fact that we are unable to accommodate the low side of these estimates to the same standard that we have been using for every other isolation status for a long as I have been working in healthcare.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
