World Situation

Some thoughts about the Coronavirus


There is a lot you can read about the Coronavirus. Here is an excellent article. I want to add a few of my thoughts to the discussion.

The statistics that are relevant to you

When you read about the statistics, especially mortality, you need to realize that these number only are relevant when considering large populations. The numbers that are relevant to you are the numbers that comes the closes to reflect your situation. For instance, men have a higher mortality rate than women. Men are almost twice as likely to die from the virus than women. Age is significant, and maybe the most important indicator. But also your health plays a big role. If you have heart disease or diabetes, you have a much higher risk.

Important of initial viral load

One factor, I believe, has a significant impact is the initial viral load. If you get a bit of the virus, it will take longer for the virus to reach critical levels. Having time gives your immune system the opportunity to create the antibodies needed to defeat the virus.

It is a numbers game

Getting the virus is pretty much a numbers game. The more people you interact with, the higher the chance that you will be exposed. Since I am 75 years old and male, I have decided to limit my interactions with others significantly. I am still going out to eat but only in restaurants where the placement of the tables provided me 6 feet of separation from the other tables. I will not go to social gathers, even small parties.

Don’t kill others

If you have a mild form of the disease and go out, you may be responsible for the death of others.

Places like Gaza

In places that have limited health care and terrible living conditions like Gaza or the Syrian refugee camps, we can expect a rapid rise of the virus with many deaths. It will then reduce because many people have already had the virus.

Maybe a vaccine by January

In Israel, where I live, the health authorities are working hard to ensure things will be under control around next January. There is a lot of good work being done to develop a vaccine.

You will know people that die

Most of us will know people that will die because of this disease, and sadly, it could be your parents or grandparents. Time to tell them you love them.

The USA is clueless about the numbers

The USA has no idea how many cases exist because of their failure to test people adequately.

The Coronavirus is here to stay like the flu

The Coronavirus will be here to stay like the flu. It will mutate and come back again and again. A vaccine will help, but we will have many sick and die every year until we find a different way to attach the virus if such a thing can be developed.

9 thoughts on “Some thoughts about the Coronavirus

  1. Avram, succinct and poignant as ever. Thx very much for sharing … P.S.As an aside, this horrible situation might drive adoption and growth of VR and online education, both offering benefits to society. stay well …

    Like

  2. Let’s also hope the USA learns not to single source medications and other vital materials necessary for the health of our citizens and economy. Those of us who have run computer centers figured this out long ago and designed them with multiple power sources.

    Like

  3. The viral load issue is probably very significant.
    I seem to remember that the Chinese doctor that was silenced by the government was healthy and only thirty four years of age, but he presumably had a lot of contact with infected people.

    Like

  4. You may not like me saying it: no one, and I mean no one, explained the coronavirus better than you in a simple sentence: “Getting the virus is pretty much a numbers game. The more people you interact with, the higher the chance that you will be exposed”.

    I am trying to explain that around me and to my readers for weeks now, but never as clearly.

    Like

    • Thank you for your comment. You may translate and use the entire post if you like. While my statement is correct, the probability of getting infected is multifactorial. Some of the other factors are the prevalence of the virus in your area, how close you get to someone, how long you are near them, as well as your own circumstance. If you do not have the virus and you do not come into contact with anyone, you will not get it. So every time I decided to be near others, I have to calculate the risk-reward of that. There are things I would do today that I will not do in a week because the probability will have increase by four times. In two weeks could be up by 16 times.

      Travel bans will do little to help at this point. The focus has to be on social distancing, testing, and hardening our medical institutions as well as looking for a vaccine and drugs.

      It is very important to have leaders that tell people the truth and encourage them to follow the best practices. For instance, young people may feel that they are not venerable and even if they are slightly sick, they will go out and infect others. They are killers. Our leaders need to make them understand.

      It is all about competence now not political views. I would rather have a leader that I don’t agree with regarding policies but is competent to deal with the crisis which starts by telling the truth. While, Israel, where I live, is not perfect, it is one of the best as far as I can see in dealing with the crisis. The USA is probably the worst. I just saw a member of the government urging people to go out to Pubs and have a good time( Nunes). He is a criminal.

      Fox News keeps telling Trump he is doing the right thing and reinforcing his bad decisions. This will only embolden him, I fear.

      Like

  5. Pingback: Macron : « on vous laisse vous infecter parce qu’on a besoin de votre vote, et après, on vous boucle »

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s