Paul Goldfinger, MD.
I wanted to illustrate an example of a high level report that is not speculation by the inflammatory media or by the US government. This study is about “suppression” of the epidemic using non-drug methods. (eg social distancing and self isolation.)
WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Modelling MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics Imperial College London
This report is 20 pages long and beyond my ability to analyze. But below are some quotes from this source that you should be able to understand. These are all quotes that have been removed out of context, but you should find them interesting. I have left out their estimates of horrible death rates under the best of circumstances in GB and US. I can’t bear sharing those numbers with you, but you can Google this study if you have the nerve.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is now a major global health threat. As of 16th March 2020, there have been 164,837 cases and 6,470 deaths confirmed worldwide. Global spread has been rapid, with 146 countries now having reported at least one case. The last time the world responded to a global emerging disease epidemic of the scale of the current COVID-19 pandemic with no access to vaccines was the 1918-19 H1N1 influenza pandemic.
“In that pandemic, some communities, notably in the United States (US), responded with a variety of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) – measures intended to reduce transmission by reducing contact rates in the general population. Examples of the measures adopted during this time included closing schools, churches, bars and other social venues. Cities in which these interventions were implemented early in the epidemic were successful at reducing case numbers while the interventions remained in place and experienced lower mortality overall. However, transmission rebounded once controls were lifted.
“Whilst our understanding of infectious diseases and their prevention is now very different compared to in 1918, most of the countries across the world face the same challenge today with COVID-19, a virus with comparable lethality to H1N1 influenza in 1918.
“Approximately one third of transmission occurs in the household, one third in schools and workplaces and the remaining third in the community.
“With 30% of hospitalized cases requiring critical care, we obtain an overall mean duration of hospitalization of 10.4 days…
“For an uncontrolled epidemic, we predict critical care bed capacity would be exceeded as early as the second week in April, with an eventual peak in ICU or critical care bed demand that is over 30 times greater than the maximum supply in both countries.
“It is not at all certain that suppression will succeed long term; no public health intervention with such disruptive effects on society has been previously attempted for such a long duration of time. How populations and societies will respond remains unclear.”
Phil: this study is looking at projections (models) for US and GB.
A useful quote for people to understand was:
“For an uncontrolled epidemic, we predict critical care bed capacity would be exceeded as early as the second week in April, with an eventual peak in ICU or critical care bed demand that is over 30 times greater than the maximum supply in both countries.”
What “both countries” was this referring to?
This is why we are meeting it with aggressive measures. If you get to that situation, where we don’t have enough ventilators and hospital beds, then the mortality rate will skyrocket, above 5% in April. If you flatten the curve, spreading out cases over many months, it will likely be well below 1%.