Bloomberg Businessweek USA 03.16.2020_

(Darren Dugan) #1
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ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS PHILPOT. DATA: NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH; XU ET AL, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ORAL SCIENCE; HOFFMANN ET AL, CELL

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he virus?


●It’squiteunlikelythatyouwilldieofCovid‑19.
ThecasefatalityrateastrackedbytheWorldHealth
Organizationofficiallystandsat3.5%,butthatcalcu‑
lationmissesoutona lotofunreportedcasesinthe
denominator.InSouthKorea,wheretestingfor
thenewcoronavirushasbeenmostwidespread,
thefatalityrateis about0.7%.Thenagain,inItaly,
whichhasalsodonea lotoftesting,it’s6.2%.
Focusingtoomuchontheseestimates,though,
canbeanexerciseinmissingthepoint.Forone
thing,Covid‑19’sfatalityrateis much,muchhigher
forthoseage 65 andolder—whohappentomakeup
a second‑highest‑in‑the‑world 22.8% of Italy’s popu‑
lation ( Japan is No. 1 at 27.6%), which helps explain
some of that country’s problems. Those with pre‑
existing conditions such as heart disease and diabe‑
tes also face much higher risks than the rest of us.
Perhaps the more important set of statistics to
ponder is that in 1918, an estimated 97.3% of peo‑
ple worldwide and 99.3% of Americans didn’t die
of influenza. Yet that year’s pandemic still killed
more people than any disease outbreak in history.
Maybe, just maybe, the biggest concerns that most
of us should have about Covid‑19 involve not per‑
sonal risk but risks to people we care about and to
society at large.

● Will this overwhelm hospitals?


One key issue is hospital capacity. In the most
severe recent flu season, that of 2017‑18, the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that

45 millionAmericanscontractedinfluenza‑like
illnesses, 810,000 were hospitalized, and 61,000
died. That makes for a fatality rate of 0.14%, five
times lower than even South Korea’s Covid‑19
death rate. Multiply those 2017‑18 flu hospital‑
ization and fatality numbers by five—or 10, or20,
bothofwhichseematleastconceivable—andit’s
easytoseehowtherapidspreadofthecorona‑
virus could overwhelm U.S. hospitals, which have
924,107 staffed beds total and only 46,500 in med‑
ical intensive care units. If that happens, the fatal‑
ityratewillgoup,notjustforCovid‑19butfor
otherailmentsaswell.It’sprobablynocoinci‑
dencethatlow‑fatality‑rateSouthKoreahasthe
world’ssecond‑most hospital beds per person
( Japan is again No. 1), with more than four times
asmanypercapitaastheU.S.
It’sthisprospectofanoverwhelmedhealth‑
care system that has motivated lockdowns in China
and Italy. It has also spurred the intensive efforts
to test and isolate Covid‑19 patients that appear
to have halted the spread of the disease in sev‑
eral East Asian countries. Epidemiologists in the
U.S. seem to be divided on whether it’s still pos‑
sible to stop the spread of the coronavirus here
thisway.It’sdefinitelypossibletoslowit,though—
whichiswhatthecurrentrashofeventcancel‑
lations,collegeshutdowns,andwork‑from‑home
advice is about. Almost all of us are going to sur‑
vive this. The question is whether we can avert a
situation where millions of us don’t. �Justin Fox,
Bloomberg Opinion
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