New Orleans emerges as next coronavirus epicenter, threatening rest of South
This is what happens when people keep minimizing the problem, sticking their heads in the sand, and saying that COVID-19 is just another flu, no big deal.
Before Mardi Gras, with enough signs of trouble brewing worldwide, I remember thinking, why in the hell won't New Orleans officials cancel the Mardi Gras celebrations this year? This is a recipe for disaster!
And now, we are starting to see the result of this stupidity.
Explosive outbreaks and their dire consequences are always delayed by several weeks. So we are starting to see now, the consequences of this boneheaded no-call.
This is why I'm absolutely for shelter-in-place orders. It's the only way to flatten the curve and break the contagion.
People say, "it doesn't work, see the numbers in Italy" - but their numbers of cases and dead people *now*, reflect infections contracted *BEFORE* they started the lockdown (and this will continue for a while because at first they didn't even enforce the lockdown seriously like they are doing now).
Between catching the virus and dying, several weeks go by.
Wait for the wave silently started BEFORE the lockdown to die out one way or the other (with people either recovering or dying), and THEN you'll see the efficacy of Italy's lockdown.
We are ALREADY talking of easing up our restrictions, although we didn't even go into complete, nation-wide lockdown.
We will pay a huge price for not taking bold action.
Currently our number of dead is consistently going up by a factor of 2.5 every 3 days. Very consistently. Do the math and see what is ahead in the horizon for us. As of now, when I type this, we are at 1,032 deaths. Keep multiplying this by 2.5 every 3 days, then multiply the result by 2.5 again 3 days later, and so on, and see where we'll rapidly be in 2 and 3 weeks.
Let me show you what this calculation yields:
3/29 = 2,580
4/1 = 6,450
4/4 = 16,125
4/7 = 40,312
4/10 = 100,781
4/13 = 251,953
4/16 = 629,882
4/19 = 1,574,707
4/21 = 3,936,767
Do I think we'll get to almost 4 million dead on 4/21? No. That would be more than 1% of the population and would suppose a more than 1% case-fatality rate with 100% of the population infected, and the real rate, accounting for non-diagnosed cases, is likely to be a bit smaller than that. Also, the virus will likely not get to a full 100% of the population.
So, no, the curve will have to slow down at some point, likely before we reach this number on 4/21, which should be the limit, because if it keeps progressing like this, the virus will run out of new people to infect, in the effect called herd immunity.
And also, the places that did implement stay home orders will slow down the overall progression.
Maybe some effective treatment will be found in the meantime, to decrease infectious potential (which is currently about a R0 - the number that shows how many other people an infected person infects - of 2.5 too, estimated to be spread over, guess what, 3 days).
Maybe the warm weather will help. While the virus is spreading in tropical climates and in places where it is summer, so we can't really count on it disappearing in the summer, it seems to spread in hot areas at a milder rate than in the wintry northern hemisphere.
But the importance of flattening this curve, is to avoid overwhelming the healthcare system.
Remember, not only the fatality rate will go up if hospitals run out of capacity for ICU beds and ventilators, but other untreated medical/surgical conditions in other age groups including the very young, will start leading to death as well - where do you put the young child with a severe asthma attack that is deteriorating and needs a ventilator, if all ventilators are taken by COVID-19 patients? How do you perform surgery with general anesthesia (which needs a ventilator) if all ventilators are taken? Where do you put the heart attacks, and the trauma patients from car crashes? And so on and so forth, not to forget that healthcare workers running out of PPE catch the virus too therefore drop out of the healthcare workforce.
No, my friends. We need to lock down the country even more before this situation becomes too serious to handle. And it's no time to start easing up the restrictions, yet.
