Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus

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Fights breaking out in our local Melbourne Cosco and shopping centres over imposed restrictions on things like trolleys. Apparently trolleys make people overstock.

Madness....even gluten free items are sold out.

UK officially gave up as well.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/coronavirus-science-chief-defends-uk-measures-criticism-herd-immunity

As I have said: there are two approaches (a) containment, (b) free-virus-for-all. UK, Germany have both chosen the route of free-virus-for-all. Unfortunately, solution (a) and solution (b) are not compatible, globally speaking. Solution (b) is basically staring people in their eyes and tell them: "Sorry, pal, you've lived a good life, bye bye." If mismanaged, solution (b) leads to people dying in hospital hallways. Not pretty. And please remember: the world is not just Europe. We still have South America, where there is no decent medical infrastructure.

Is COVID-19 containable? It surely is, as East Asia has proven. But containment has broken the bank in Europe. Frankly, I am not sure the implication of free-virus-for-all approach. That was how Mother Nature has worked for millions of years. It often works, but sometimes it has some side effects. For instance, sickle-cell disease is great defense against malaria, but causes other problems.

When people have hacking coughs on the NYC subway, most people ignore them.

I just got off a train that had very few seats at 10:30 at night. Except for the closed big events and colleges, it’s business as usual in NYC.

I did see some people with masks. But it’s probably a 1:20 to 1:10 ratio masked:unmasked people.

It’s not panic city in NYC.

Ivanka Trump works from home after meeting Peter Dutton

^yep....that’s the essence of it.....

Bought some things yesterday. And was clearly to see that certain items (TP and hand sanitizers) where sold out. And some food products where at a low level.

Also the Dutch association for medical microbiology has criticized the RIVM (basically the government information center for public health) for providing incomplete and outdated information.

This is the free-virus-for-all scenario.

Europe has 3 doctors per 1,000 people. Or 0.3%. Assuming 1/6 of the doctors can be drafted into respiratory care, that's 0.05%, or 5 bp (basis points). (Remember most doctors still have regular duties).

70% infection, assuming 10% requiring hospitalization, that makes 7%, or 700 bp. Roughly speaking, each doctor will need to care for 700/5=140 patients. Each patient needs the bed for 2~3 weeks. Let's say early discharge (or death), so 2 weeks. Spread over 2 months (that's what's realistic when 70% population gets infected), that means 4 effective cycles. So, on the average, each doctor will be attending 35 patients. It's doable, if the infection rate could be controlled. Borderline manageable.

In this picture, there is one or two countries in South America that will be overwhelmed.

US is implementing drive-through testing, now. So US is still going the route of containment. China wouldn't want the second wave to reach its shore. So, you will have US and China cutting off Europe. In this sense, Europe is becoming public enemy number 1.

The whole state of Massachusetts is just cancelled and shut down at this point.

123 cases so far