Someone close to me showed me a memo that was sent from the CDC last week. It compared influenza mortality to the novel coronavirus.
I believe it was the 2019 flu statistic that showed 34 million flu cases with 20,000 deaths----an approximate mortality rate of 0.05%.
The known cases of novel coronavirus infection at the time were 113,000 with 4,000 deaths-----an approximate mortality rate of 3.5%.
These statistics show that the novel coronavirus has approximately 70 times the mortality rate of influenza.
While this is very concerning; you have to consider that influenza screening is very common and widespread. Heck, I went to get my blood pressure medicines filled and get my annual physical at the same time I had cold symptoms. I didn't even have a fever and they swabbed my nose to test for flu.
She said, "The good news is, you don't have the flu." lol
I think that is insurance fraud or something to have a test that I didn't need.
I believe there are literally millions of undiagnosed cases of coronavirus; and it is likely that many of these people are asymptomatic carriers. This could make the statistics much, much worse; or could make the statistics much less ominous than the 3.5% mortality.
It is entirely too early for even the epidemiology braniacs to hypothesize.
I imagine within the next couple weeks to 1 month, things will either: A) blow over and leave some people with a closet full of toilet paper; or B) get much worse with a, at minimum, temporary change to "liberties" and daily life as we know it.
One thing I feel certain about: Containment is, at this point, a lost cause. It is here and there and everywhere; and it will run its course. The media fueled hysteria has the potential to have a much greater impact on life, in my opinion, than the virus itself.
But scientific research and hypothesis are not my specialty------I'm just a drug dealer.