You’re taking this killer seriously, right?
Posted on March 20, 2020

I hate reading articles that folks think COVID-19 is a hoax or is overblown. Or seeing those images of hundreds on the Georgia beaches. This article says a “poll this week found the percentage of those taking the threat of coronavirus had actually declined since February [for a segment of those along the political spectrum].” How can this be? This is a killer. It wants to kill us older folks in particular. This will not be a 15-day inconvenience that will keep us safe. I’m thinking this will last for over a year for us older folks. We will not truly be safe until we get a vaccine that protects us. The purpose of this post is to link to a good article I found and some other web sites.

 

Patti and I are being super cautious. I heard this from Sanjay Gupta on CNN, and we follow this advice: act as if we already have the virus and didn’t want to give it to someone else. The restaurants in Florida are still open; tables are spaced further apart. But if you acted as if you already had it and did not want to risk giving it to someone else, why would you ever eat out?

 

== Article I like ==

 

I like this article. David Gorski is full-time cancer surgeon and is an amazing blogger. This is cram full of information. You clearly understand from this that our enemy wants to kill us older folks. This is very different from seasonal flu and other pandemics which killed older folks at a far lower rate. Here are two graphs: the blue line in the bottom graph is the one that wants to kill us now.

 

 

 

== Why didn’t I think of this? ==

 

I should have thought this through a lot earlier: how does the seasonal flu start with one person and grow to 40 million total just in the US? And 40 million is after a large part have been vaccinated and others probably had some immunity before the vaccine. It’s the power of compound growth. Exponential growth. I should have thought far earlier: this has no immunity; AT LEAST 40 million will get it; and at least ten times more will die because it’s “ten times more lethal.” This is a good presentation on exponential growth.

 

== Information sources I like ==

 

Here are the three I have on my Favorites bar on my computer:

 

 

I like this New York Times web site. The information is in a very clear format. I also added it to my Home Screen on my iPhone. It’s easier to read there than the other two. I particularly like the chart below. You get a quick visualization of the trend in new cases by country. You can see the US crossed ten new cases per day later than the others on this display; this simply may be due to the lack of testing. You can see how the trend is headed down in China and South Korea. China actually had no new domestic cases on Wednesday.

 

 

I’ve bookmarked two more sites on my desktop computer: the Johns-Hopkins dashboard, which is not easy to view on my iPhone but is very up to date, and the WHO daily situation report. Every time I click on the Johns-Hopkins site or refresh the screen after a few minutes, the case count increases.

 

 

 

Conclusion: I assume I’m stating the obvious to you, but it’s worth repeating. We older folks are the prime killing target for this virus. We have to take extra care and likely will have to do that for many months. You can find good articles that tell the story and give a solid understanding of trends. Please stay super safe.