When thinking about the risk of the novel coronavirus, there are several problems with the data. The biggest problem, of course, is people refusing to even look at any kind of data, because that’s how many of us roll. But even trying to look at published data you run into the problems of the lying regime (like China), the dysfunctional regime (like Iran), or lack of testing (United States, Italy). So I’ll be looking exclusively at the data from South Korea, the best data we have so far. I’ll point out that South Korea, so far, has had the best outcome for those affected by the virus.
South Korea has had nearly nine thousand confirmed cases, and 94 deaths. That’s about ten times as deadly as this season’s flu, a relatively deadly strain. If that were the whole story, a coronavirus outbreak of seasonal flu proportions would cause about half a million deaths in the United States this year.
But that’s not the whole story. The one percent death rate in South Korea occurred under the best conditions under which to prevent deaths. Nearly every patient who needed critical care could receive it. The five to six percent of the infected who needed life support through respirators had access to a respirator. South Korea didn’t run out of either respirators or hospital beds, the two resources most under stress.
And that’s the reason why we are shutting down the economy–lack of trained medical personnel, masks, hospital beds, and especially respirators. Without proper ICU care, the death rate from this new coronavirus is not one percent, but climbs to five or six percent, a death rate worse than the Spanish flu of 1918. That is what the local, state, and federal governments are belatedly trying to avoid.
