Originally Posted by
nate5ks
I see a pandemic threat that is steadily declining due to increased testing to draw mortality statistics from. A complete shutdown of the global economy is not necessary and could have more dire effects than that of this virus if it lasts too long. How long, I don't exactly know but seeing how hard it is to get the govt to cooperate on one single stimulus package I have little faith that we can weather a storm where 2 or more are needed.
That's the point, we currently don't know who has it because there aren't enough tests. The virus spreads rampantly (reference last post) so we freeze everything with a quarantine until we have a way to isolate whose infected and contain the spread. Then and only then can we start trying to return to normal. But with the weight of a $20T economy being held hostage by COVID19 tests, PPE, very specific medical equipment, and CDC tracking logistics, the problem has near unlimited resources and a highly motivated capitalist economy to make it happen. It can get solved. As long as Wall Street doesn't screw it up by forcing an outbreak that can't be contained.
Also, 46% of the people who tested positive on the cruise ship were asymptomatic:
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/...cid=mm6912e3_w
Even with those numbers, allowed to run rampant in the population, the 2% fatality rate (which is really the best case) become 1%, roughly 60% need to get the virus and survive for herd immunity, so that's still 2 million deaths, and 20 million that need to be hospitalized. So, even if we theoretically had enough beds to treat 20 million people, that would still come out more deaths than all US wars combined and it'd likely lead to a recession or a depression that could be solved economically.