There’s a chance that it won’t
More Trump trying to pull intelligent sentences out of his empty head:
Asked if he was worried about the spread of novel coronavirus in the United States, President Trump said, “No, because we’re ready for it.”
No we’re not.
“It is what it is. We’re ready for it. We’re really prepared,” the President continued. “We have, as I said, we have the greatest people in the world. We’re very ready for it. We hope it doesn’t spread. There’s a chance that it won’t spread, too. And there’s a chance that it will.”
Ah. There’s a chance that it won’t spread, and a chance that it will. What a relief to know that someone is in charge!
“It’s just a question of at what level. So far, we’ve done a great job. When you have 15 people — with this whole world coming into the United States — and the 15 people are either better or close to being better, that’s pretty good.”
And the situation is going to freeze at this stage, so everything is fabulous and we can all go hunt for the hidden ice cream.
So. In addition to there being a “chance” that it won’t spread, and a chance that it will – could go either way – the 15 people who are already infected are either better, or they aren’t. Thanks, I’m sure that’s very reassuring.
Lucky Trump does not have an important job: like say, driver of a fire truck.
I must say, the mix of tragedy and comedy is tearing me apart.
It’s one of the biggest challenges in public health to communicate risk to the public. Most people don’t understand risk because it is often counterintuitive. That’s OK, that’s our job as scientists, working with good science communicators to get the right message out. Blundering idiocy by the moron in chief is very, very bad but what’s worse is the right wing dismissal of expert opinion because expertise = deep state actors, not people with the best interests of the American people at heart.
It scares me. COV19 is going to be no picnic. We wondered how bad it would be if Trump had to manage a major disaster. Poor Puerto Rico was our warning (they still don’t have full power). This has the potential to be a lot worse, not because of the virus itself (although it does look nasty) but because the US health care system is totally unprepared.
There’s a case in Northern California now where we have no idea where they got it. They hadn’t traveled, hadn’t come into contact with a known case, nothing. We can’t yet explain it. The incubation period is long, it makes it really hard to track the chain of infection.
It’s time to take some sensible precautions. Stock up (if you can) on some nonperishables. Talk to your employer about readiness plans – teleworking, staggered commutes, etc. Don’t panic. Just be ready.
Claire @4,
I think it was Nate Silver or one of his team who observed (in the context of election predictions, and the public reaction to them) that most people don’t really understand probabilities. They pretty much sort future events into discrete categories of “never gonna happen,” “no idea if it will happen, flip a coin,” and “definitely gonna happen.” Maybe some more sophisticated types can handle two more categories for “probably won’t/will happen.” But any more subtle shades than that are lost. Hence they took a ton of criticism for “being wrong” about the 2016 election, when they had Hillary as a 2:1 favorite on Election Day.
Screechy, I was just talking about that issue with my Biology class this morning, in context with genetics. Same thing – public totally doesn’t get probabilities (or genetics) when it come to heredity, either.
I used to play online poker, and the number of people who would type furiously in the chat box about “THIS SITE IS RIGGED” after they lost a hand where they were only a 55%-45% favorite was astonishing. (And profitable.)
World population is 7.76 billion. (7,763,000,000). Assuming the same mortality rate worldwide, and a vaccine does not arrive in time and/or in sufficient quantity: 1.4% of 7.76 billion people is 110,000,000 people. Not just sick. Dead. Worldwide.
Will someone please show me where I am wrong? I am having trouble right now with these my fingers of mine and getting them where I want them to go on this keyboard.
https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert
Omar, you’re wrong in assuming a 100% infection rate. No infectious disease has this profile (except for the terminal disease of ‘having been born’, of course), and the diseases which have a higher transmission/infection rate tend to also have a much higher mortality rate, and so burn themselves out before they can infect very many people.
At this point, there’s still an awful lot we don’t know about this particular virus, but the picture we’re getting is that *either* it’s being undercounted because most people who get sick aren’t severe enough to go to the hospital, in which case it isn’t as deadly as we think (though still at least an order of magnitude more deadly than the more common strains of influenza, who themselves got their name because surviving them was put down to the influence of the gods), *or* it is being counted accurately and many cases are severe, in which case it isn’t as infectious as many people are worried about.
That does not mean there is not cause for concern, but there is no use in panicking, stocking up on goods, avoiding contact with crowds, shunning Asian-looking people, or any other such nonsense. Keep in mind that about a hundred thousand people die worldwide *every single day*, and that one day, regardless of its cause, each of us will be counted among that number. Until then, we get to choose how we live, and what our lives mean.
So Seth, what would you say the likely infection rate will be if the control measures so far put in place actually work? Please note I am not an epidemiologist or a medically-trained person.
I have no idea; I’m just a lowly bit wrangler who recently escaped the madness of North America. But the virus isn’t likely to be more than twice as infectious as influenza and it isn’t likely to be more than a hundred times as deadly. I could be wrong, and even if I’m right that is still millions of people (including plenty of young-ish and healthy-ish ones), potentially tens of millions.
But it does nobody any good to posit wildly that every single person on the planet will get infected, or imply that a substantial minority of those infected will die. Plenty of people will get infected, and plenty of those will die. But most people won’t get infected, and most of those infected won’t die. Yes, we should take individual precautions and pressure our governments to do the same. But you shouldn’t despair, and more importantly, you shouldn’t needlessly cause despair in others.
All I am doing is trying to get a handle on the reality of it. We should all know as far as possible exactly what we are facing. As Corporal Jones of Dad’s Army would say while rushing to and fro: “Don’t panic!! Don’t panic!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR0lOtdvqyg