Originally Posted by
Uplinker
According to the CDC, 3,000 people have died from the Covid19 virus but 20,000 people have died from Flu in the current season.
According to a virologist on the radio yesterday: 1/5 of people exposed will catch Covid19. Only 1/5 of those will display symptoms. So that's 4% of people who have been exposed, by my maths, or 1 in 25. Of those, most will just have a fever and a dry cough.
Time to stop panicking.
Wash your hands - with water and soap - more than usual and take multi vitamins and minerals.
As a virologist responding to the UK's initial plan said: small percentages multiplied by large numbers make for quite large numbers. Percentage-wise, 1% or less of lethality doesn't sound much but if you multiply it by a couple dozen million you end up with way more severely sick people than any country's health system can cope with (there aren't that many intensive care units around). Once you start running out of ICUs you have a lot of dead people in the equation as well. And to most people it make's a difference if Gran died because she was 80+ and "passed away in her sleep" or asphyxiated because the doctors at triage decided that someone younger had better chances of survival than Gran.
Here the government is heavily subsidizing short-time work and is doing everything to boost confidence despite shop/restaurant closures, etc. We get a payout to 80% of previous net and unemployment insurance (boosted with a government contribution) pays for all the time we don't actually work. This is not going to last forever and basically paid for with our own money (as workers pay the largest percentage of total tax revenue) but it helps to keep things going. Fingers crossed to still have an airline and demand once the virus spread has slowed....