Quote:
Originally Posted by wac_432
This is true. I think we're going to see that of the 60% of the population that contract Covid-19, only 20% of cases show enough symptoms to even go to the doctor, and then only 2-3% of those require hospitalization. Of those, only 4-5% die.
So "only"
1.2M hospitalizations (for 0.25M open beds)
and
60,000 deaths. Plus however many can't get life-saving treatment due to the system being swamped. So probably more like 100,000 to 200,000 deaths.
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The USA has approximately 227 to 331 Million people. Let's round it to 330 million.
In order to achieve "herd immunity" - I've read we need between 40% and 70% of the population to have been infected & recovered (antibodies) or to have received a vaccination (which we don't yet have.) "Herd immunity" means enough members of society are now immune such that people who are infected are not infecting others nearby, and hence the exponential spread no longer occurs.
Let's say we can get herd immunity with 45%, on the low end.
45% of about 330 million people is about 149 million people. Let's just round it off to 150 million.
I've read that 80% will not require hospitalization (you implied 80% won't need to go to a doctor).
80% of 150 million is about 120 million people who will NOT need hospitalization.
That leaves about 30 million people who WILL need hospitalization.
Of those 30 million people who will need hospitalization, about 7.5 million to 15 million will need a ventilator to help relieve the burden on their lungs & heart, giving their body a chance to heal and possibly survive.
Let's say it is on the low end - only 7.5 million people will need a ventilator to have a shot at living.
Industry estimates are that there are between 72,000 and 120,000 ventilators in the USA today.
Let's round that up to 150,000 operational ventilators in the USA.
That means there are enough ventilators to provide life-saving support to 0.02% of the total number of cases that will need a ventilator to survive.
If the need for ventilators hits all at once, 150,000 people will have a shot at living.
Out of every 50 people who need a ventilator, only 1 will get access to it. The other 49 will not, and they will die.
Your odds are 1 in 50. The rest - 7,350,000 people - WILL die.
So ask yourself a question. "Do you feel lucky? Huh? Well do you?"
The immediate response will be that not all 7.5 million people will need the ICU at the same time. True enough. But this contagion is much like a chain reaction in a nuclear bomb - it goes from a tiny number to a huge number very rapidly. A nuclear bomb does it in much less than the blink of an eye, and the virus is doing it more slowly. The data - which is flawed, of course - indicate somewhere between doubling the number of infections every day at the worst, and doubling every several days at the best.
So, again, ask yourself a question. "Do you feel lucky?"
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