I've been doing some reading about Covid-19 this morning, and boy has this thing been blown out of proportion.
To begin with, the numbers coming out of China are utterly unreliable. Most of these people aren't even being tested properly. To test for this virus, you need specifically formulated reagents, specially trained personnel, and a mess of other costly chemicals and equipment. There is no way the Chinese government is running these tests at the scale they are claiming. It's more probable that they are using only token screening methods and then implementing mass quarantines because it's just easier that way.
And the numbers out of Italy and Iran are suspicious as well. The governments of these two contries are notoriously corrupt and/or inept as well.
Consider this--this is the seventh known coronavirus to infect humans beings since the SARS outbreak in 2003. The severity of illness from coronavirus ranges widely, from annoyance to death. As with so many viruses, it's possible to get infected with a coronavirus and not even know it. Yes, you might have a coronavirus in your body already.
If you do, of course, that coronavirus isn't the Covid-19 virus, officially known now as SARS-CoV-2. This strain seems to be a bit severe. At least, some people have experienced severe symptoms. Others have weathered the virus out like a bad flu, and then gone on with their lives.
Or so we're being told. As I said above, the numbers are unreliable enough to be useless. The CDC numbers in the USA are probably accurate insofar as the number of reported cases being literal SARS-CoV-2 is close enough. Yes, tests are being rationed, but it seems that few cases are being reported without a SARS-CoV-2-specific polymerase chain-reaction test behind it.
How many infected people are walking around the USA, though, we can't know. And not knowing this number, or having a clear idea what is really happening in other countries means it's not possible to know exactly how dangerous this virus really is.
Certainly an abundance of caution is wise to have. Still, market freefalls and panic buying are embarrassing overreactions. It would be nice if once in a while we did not act like gazelles, stampeding fearfully just because that's what all the other gazelles are doing.
Reality is Fake
Somewhere in Oregon
03.01.2020