Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway8291 | Hacker News Reader

How true. I believe the US will see an even worse fallout than Italy - because people who can afford private medical personal tend to question whether healthcare is a business model at all ("Is curing patients a sustainable business model?", GS).

America has the most uplifting and free-spirited legacy, but it has been transformed in the past decades into the most primitive form of greed and selfishness possible. Covid-19 is only the eye-opener.

FTR: I believe the US will lose 5% of its population to the coronavirus in 2020. Not being panicky, just multiplying.

View on HN

What odds are you giving for the 5% prediction?

COVID-19 is going to hit us hard, but I believe deeply in America's ability to adapt and pull together. We are fractured and almost-leaderless today, but the United States tends to do very well against a common challenge, once the scale of the challenge is understood.

The United States's greatest challenges of the 20th century were only dealt with after the country had strong leadership at the top. There is zero chance the U.S. will get that aforementioned strong leadership before January 2021 at the earliest.

5%? That's like 15-20 million people. Doubt it. We, the United States, have a lot of problems. We're greedy. We're arrogant. While we can't prevent all deaths, we're not going to let 15-20 million people die to a virus in this modern age of technology and healthcare.

I hope for the best.

>>we're not going to let 15-20 million people die to a virus in this modern age of technology and healthcare.

well, you have to take measures weeks and months ahead, or else it doesn't matter...lungs need oxygen.

Technology doesn't help once the number of cases needing intensive care exceed the capacity. Healthcare doesn't exist without technology.

Italy exceeded that limit in the last two days, so now they have to decide who has the highest chance of survival, and those people get intensive care, if it is available.

Coronavirus has death rate of 1-2%. It might be slightly higher if the health care system gets overwhelmed, but the US has a head start on Italy/China in terms of social distancing measures.

3.4%

That number is a crude estimate based on reported cases. The real number of cases is obviously higher than the ones being reported.

These are WHO figures. You are speculating.

While the true mortality of COVID-19 will take some time to fully understand, the data we have so far indicate that the crude mortality ratio (the number of reported deaths divided by the reported cases) is between 3-4%, the infection mortality rate (the number of reported deaths divided by the number of infections) will be lower.

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati...

>The real number of cases is obviously higher than the ones being reported.

Yes... and the number of dead people will also obviously be higher - because the disease has not yet run its course in all of the reported cases.

Here is Lancet from 12 March estimating 5.7% final mortality rate among confirmed cases.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...

I will make a bet with you for whatever amount of money that you want that every single prediction you just made is false. On a per capita basis, the US will have a better time than Italy. The US will lose nowhere near 5% of its population. Not even 1%.

Happy to formalize it and bet for real, if you'd like.

What odds are you giving on "On a per capita basis, the US will have a better time than Italy"... the worst affected country so far?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com