Coronavirus spreads. But don't panic! (topical thread)

[Aroura]

The military will not do that.

That's what the over-militarized cops are for.

The military has already made those plans, and are currently just dusting them off and cracking them open for study.

And sure, the overly-militarized police will have a mission too.

The German data is the best where testing in the early phase of spread indicates a fatality rate of about 0.15per cent.

This is puzzling me for a week or more now. Why is the german ratio so different even from neighbouring nations like France? I see absolutely no difference in how the epidemic is treated here. Is it that we are only in a rather early stage and the infected germans are going to die later and pop up in the statistics only in a few days/weeks?

Of course we may be a bit better organized, but i doubt that this will result is 1/10 maortality compared to other nations. After all Germany is also very densely populated (in some areas, exactly where most of the infected are sitting now).

The average morality rate for the general pandemic seems to be running 3-3.5%.

What is Germany's average age? That's apparently a big risk factor, and one I suspect is why Italy is being ravaged. Smoking is another. I'd imagine Germans on the whole smoke less than Chinese or Italians (though I'm definitely amenable to correction, I don't have the facts at hand), which could be affecting your numbers as well.

Germans smoke a lot (at least, east Germans do).  I think I read they have almost double the smoking rate as the US.
Ok, just went and googled it.  Roughly 30% of Germans smoke.

I think the article originally linked has it right.  they are testing more (brings the number down as they catch lower symptom people), but also, it is simply early in their curve.  Their first case was Jan 27, but it seems they got that under control, as that cluster mostly is the one traced to what happened in Italy.  There wasn't much Spread in Germany until late February, when Italy re-infected German vacationers returning from there. 

The first deaths in Germany were 6 days ago.  Their first community spread a little less than 2 weeks ago.  Like some of the other Northern European countries, they are simply at the beginning.  I suspect it will still be handled well, as they are already shutting down unnecessary gatherings, school, and asking people to work from home, and everyone has healthcare, and they have solid social safety nets for people who can't work and such.

I'm no doctor, but I think it's possible the best data is coming out of S.Korea.
They are doing massive testing, so likely to have pretty accurate infection rates.  They also have a very good single payer health care system, so everyone is getting treatment if they need it, and they slowed the spread so their system wasn't overwhelmed leading to unnecessary deaths.  Their recorded death rate is .7%.
I know it's not the flu, but just as a rough comparison, the flu has a 0.01% death rate in it's worst years.

We have vaccines for the flu, of course, and some immunity in the population.  Once we have that, the death rate for Covid19 may also lower significantly.
But crucially, we currently have neither of those things.