I woke up about a week ago to headlines that the world – or at least many of the people in the world – might be doomed because of COVID-19, or coronavirus. Headlines told me, “one person might have been infected a second time by coronavirus” and “Outbreak at ‘decisive point’ as WHO urges action,” and from the never-Trumper RINO Peggy Noonan in the WSJ, “Trump isn’t easing coronavirus forebodings.”
As Obama’s former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste,” and with coronavirus, it’s a grand opportunity to bash Trump.
So, let’s put the politics aside, take a few deep breaths, and get some perspective here.
First off, if you would like to “follow coronavirus live,” go to worldometers.info/coronavirus.
As of about 8 AM EST on Friday, 28 Feb, here’s what we know from this website. There are about 84,000 cases worldwide, with 2,867 deaths. If you or your family have experienced these deaths, my condolences to you – but more people die in car crashes every day, about 3,300 a day worldwide. The BBC reports that the majority of those deaths have been in China’s Hubei province. Let’s say that there are actually ten times more cases worldwide, or 840k, than actually reported (84k). The current planet population is 7.8 billion people. So, on the very high side, .0001% of the population “might” be infected.
According to Aljazeera.com (potentially the only time I ever have or will visit this website), in the US, as of February 27th, 2020, there are – wait for it – 60 confirmed cases. Let’s multiply that by ten for “unconfirmed cases” to 600. That means that on the very high side, of the 330 million people in the US, .0000019% of the population might be infected. South Korea, one of the biggest “outbreaks,” has 1,766 reported cases. Let’s multiply THAT number by ten, to 18,000 cases. That figure would make up just .00035% of the Korean population. Italy – now there’s a big problem with 650 cases – let’s multiply that by ten to 6,500 of the 60,500,000 people in Italy – .0001%.
Of the 84,000 thousand cases reported worldwide, 78,947 of them are in China – 94% of them are in China.
More perspective:
–In a January 2020 article on the World Health Organization (WHO) website, we see that in 2018, there were 228 million cases of malaria worldwide, with 405,000 deaths
-The WHO estimates that 770,000 people are dying globally from HIV
-The WHO reports that in 2018, there were more than 140,000 deaths from measles – “a highly contagious, serious disease caused by a virus” – just like, apparently, COVID-19
-As reported by the CDC on 7 January 2020, in the US in 2019, there were 607 “probable and confirmed” cases of West Nile virus, with 51 deaths
-The National Safety Council reports that in 2019, 38,800 people died in the US in car accidents – 106 every day, about 4 an hour, every hour, every day, in 2019
-The CDC “estimates that each year 48 million people get sick from a foodborne illness, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die” – those numbers appear to just be for the US.
Ladies and Gentlemen – the coronavirus “pandemic” started, apparently, officially, on December 31, 2019, when China alerted the WHO to “several cases of unusual pneumonia in Wuhan.” Every year, December through March is “flu season.” Yes, coronavirus appears to be a little nastier than other flu strains, but we just need to be a little extra vigilant about sanitation, and maybe it’s not a bad idea to screen and quarantine people who have come from China or cruise boats with infected people. But this too shall pass – just like the flu I had a couple of weeks ago.
One Response
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The world is having a hard time with this pandemic.
However, there is hope, a guide that will be useful: http://bit.ly/coronavirus-survival-guide
Good health to all!