# News & Current Events > Coronavirus SARS-CoV2 >  Is the world going crazy?

## 69360

Hello everyone. I haven't posted here in a long time, but used to. I came across a recent article by Ron and it reminded me that maybe I could find fellow voices of reason here. It seems like most of the world is suffering mass hysteria. I figured there would be people like me still here who are just not that concerned about this virus. I don't really think it is some vast conspiracy, nor something created by a government as a weapon. It's just a virus, they happen all the time. You get flu like symptoms for a week and recover. Not a big deal. Yes some people have died. But the numbers are statistically very low. We are a nation of over 300 million and we shut down the whole country and potentially crash the economy over a few thousand with flu symptoms and 100 deaths? I am just in awe of the mass delusion and panic.

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## Danke

Have you stocked up on Butt Wipe?

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## oyarde

> Have you stocked up on Butt Wipe?


They are tough up there in Maine . Use inner tree bark .

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## 69360

No leaves on the trees yet or I would be all set.

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## PursuePeace

yes, the world is going crazy.

To cut the tension, I just keep randomly screaming at things around the house in my best Homer scream.

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## Slave Mentality

Time for me to focus more on presence and gratitude.  

To answer your question; yes the world has gone crazy, but it went crazy long before any of us were here.  These patterns you feel are not coincidental.  Fear is the bedfellow of control.  We are being manipulated.

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## Pauls' Revere

> Have you stocked up on Butt Wipe?


Just when I begin to lose hope. Along comes Danke. ROFLMAO !

+ rep.

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## Pauls' Revere

18 month long pandemic?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-virus-p...190626012.html

*The plan, which was unclassified but marked “For Official Use Only // Not For Public Distribution or Release,” was shared with The New York Times* as Trump escalated his efforts to curb the spread of the virus. After weeks of playing down the seriousness of the pandemic, saying it would miraculously disappear, Trump began shifting to a more sober tone during a news conference Friday announcing the national emergency.

Much of the plan is bureaucratic in nature, describing coordination among agencies and actions that in some cases have already been taken, like urging schools to close and large events to be canceled. But its discussion of the Defense Production Act came as lawmakers and others urged Trump to invoke its powers.

*Whoops,...someone let this slip out?*

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## r3volution 3.0

> Hello everyone. I haven't posted here in a long time, but used to. I came across a recent article by Ron and it reminded me that maybe I could find fellow voices of reason here. It seems like most of the world is suffering mass hysteria. I figured there would be people like me still here who are just not that concerned about this virus. I don't really think it is some vast conspiracy, nor something created by a government as a weapon. It's just a virus, they happen all the time. You get flu like symptoms for a week and recover. Not a big deal. Yes some people have died. But the numbers are statistically very low. We are a nation of over 300 million and we shut down the whole country and potentially crash the economy over a few thousand with flu symptoms and 100 deaths? I am just in awe of the mass delusion and panic.


I'll agree with that there's no grand conspiracy here, but disagree that this is like the flu.

All the evidence I've seen shows that it's about an order of magnitude more infectious and more deadly than the flu. 

If you don't endorse a conspiratorial view, you should ask yourself why every state in the world is freaking out (which they don't do for the flu).

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## 69360

> 18 month long pandemic?
> 
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-virus-p...190626012.html
> 
> *The plan, which was unclassified but marked “For Official Use Only // Not For Public Distribution or Release,” was shared with The New York Times* as Trump escalated his efforts to curb the spread of the virus. After weeks of playing down the seriousness of the pandemic, saying it would miraculously disappear, Trump began shifting to a more sober tone during a news conference Friday announcing the national emergency.
> 
> Much of the plan is bureaucratic in nature, describing coordination among agencies and actions that in some cases have already been taken, like urging schools to close and large events to be canceled. But its discussion of the Defense Production Act came as lawmakers and others urged Trump to invoke its powers.
> 
> *Whoops,...someone let this slip out?*


It is basically over in China in 3 months. 18 months?




> I'll agree with that there's no grand conspiracy here, but disagree that this is like the flu.
> 
> All the evidence I've seen shows that it's about an order of magnitude more infectious and more deadly than the flu. 
> 
> If you don't endorse a conspiratorial view, you should ask yourself why every state in the world is freaking out (which they don't do for the flu).


Mass hysteria, I have no other explanation. The media has just got so out of control something like this was bound to happen eventually I suppose. China is a country of what 1.5 billion or something and 80,000 got flu like symptoms with 3,000 deaths. No disrespect to the families of the deceased but that is statistically irrelevant. Most of the deaths have a comorbidity, a pre-existing condition. The common cold could have killed them.

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## r3volution 3.0

> China is a country of what 1.5 billion or something and 80,000 got flu like symptoms with 3,000 deaths.


Yes, but that's after China basically shut down the entire country.

What would have happened had they not done that?

A 3% mortality rate, with half the population getting infected, is 45 million people.

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## dannno

> All the evidence I've seen shows that it's about an order of magnitude more infectious and more deadly than the flu.


http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post6932809

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## Okie RP fan

Yes, the world has lost its collective mind. 

Maybe this is something completely manufactured, maybe it's not. I have no idea at this point. 

I think it's been completely overblown, but I also believe there needs to be some serious thought and precautions with this from what I've gathered. The more I read, the more it appears that lockdowns are the only thing that has prevented this thing from getting out even more. 
Something to keep in mind is the East Asian countries go through this stuff rather often. It's one of the reasons many of them wear masks to begin with. Apparently, whenever there's sickness going around, they all start wearing masks and limit outside exposure as part of their culture, particularly in Japan and South Korea. The full lockdown in Wuhan was next level stuff though, even for most East Asians.

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## 69360

> Yes, but that's after China basically shut down the entire country.
> 
> What would have happened had they not done that?
> 
> A 3% mortality rate, with half the population getting infected, is 45 million people.


China didn't quarantine over a billion people. Even a communist government doesn't have that kind of power. 

The mortality rate is nowhere near 3%. There are no hard statistics yet it's all too new but a fair estimate is more like .5% in people over 70 or with pre-existing conditions and just about nothing for healthy people. You can't use the confirmed cases v. deaths for morbidity numbers because you don't know how many people are infected but not symptomatic or just had typical flu like symptoms and self medicated etc. It's a bit worse than seasonal flu but hardly ebola.

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## brandon

I also haven't posted here in a long time and am back here for the same reason as you 69360. 

The world is going $#@!ing crazy. 

WTF do we do next?

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## brandon

FWIW: One of my favorite articles: https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/...RnP4tcPhqaXU3o

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## 69360

> I also haven't posted here in a long time and am back here for the same reason as you 69360. 
> 
> The world is going $#@!ing crazy. 
> 
> WTF do we do next?


I am completely at a loss with what to do. I have never seen anything like this level of mass panic in my 40 some years on this planet. 

The media is now comparing this to WW2. 75 million people were killed in WW2. Something like 7,500 have died from the virus and frankly most of them probably were not healthy to begin with. 

The devastation to the economy from mass panic is going to kill more people long term than the virus.

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## r3volution 3.0

> China didn't quarantine over a billion people. Even a communist government doesn't have that kind of power.


I don't mean that they literally quarantined the entire population, but they did implement draconian restrictions on a large part of the population.

I think it's fairly obvious that those measures are responsible for the decline in new infections. 

What else would it be? There's no vaccine. 




> The mortality rate is nowhere near 3%.


Well, the figures you cited (80k infected, 3k dead) yield a mortality rate of 3.75%.

The estimates from academics that I've seen are around 2-3%, or about 10x the flu. 

Another important distinction, perhaps the most important, is that a huge fraction of people who don't die still require hospitalization.

Hence the shortage of beds, ventilators, etc. 

If we had enough supply to meet all of that demand, this might be much less serious, but we don't. 




> There are no hard statistics yet it's all too new but a fair estimate is more like .5% in people over 70 or with pre-existing conditions and just about nothing for healthy people.


Where do you get that figure?




> You can't use the confirmed cases v. deaths for morbidity numbers because you don't know how many people are infected but not symptomatic or just had typical flu like symptoms and self medicated etc.


The same applies to the numerator. 

Further, assuming both # infected and # dead are accurate (or equally inaccurate), the simple case fatality rate is going to be an _under_estimate in an ongoing epidemic because of the long incubation period. That is, the number who die today should not be divided by the number infected today, but by the number infected some time in the past (i.e when the people now dying were infected, which is of course a smaller number).

Here's a recent article from The Lancet. They put the simple case fatility rate at 3.6% and the adjusted rate (as explained above) at 5.6%.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...195-X/fulltext

No one knows for sure, but I've not seen anything from any reputable source that isn't vastly higher than the flu.




> It's a bit worse than seasonal flu but hardly ebola.


Ebola is well over 50%, so no, it's nothing like ebola, but it's also not the flu.

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## brandon

> I am completely at a loss with what to do. I have never seen anything like this level of mass panic in my 40 some years on this planet. 
> 
> The media is now comparing this to WW2. 75 million people were killed in WW2. Something like 7,500 have died from the virus and frankly most of them probably were not healthy to begin with. 
> 
> The devastation to the economy from mass panic is going to kill more people long term than the virus.


100% agreed.  

I'm at a loss for words... I just agree.

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## 69360

> No one knows for sure, but I've not seen anything from any reputable source that isn't vastly higher than the flu.


Ok for the sake of argument, lets say I agree with you.

Annual flu cases are 50 million and deaths are 55k according to the CDC. 

We don't have a mass panic every flu season and destroy the economy for that. 

Why for this virus? Not to be heartless but if this was 3xs worse than seasonal flu 150,000 would die. Statistically that isn't worth destroying the economy for. 

I have no reasonable explanation other than mass hysteria.

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## r3volution 3.0

> Ok for the sake of argument, lets say I agree with you.
> 
> Annual flu cases are 50 million and deaths are 55k according to the CDC. 
> 
> We don't have a mass panic every flu season and destroy the economy for that. 
> 
> Why for this virus? Not to be heartless but if this was 3xs worse than seasonal flu 150,000 would die. Statistically that isn't worth destroying the economy for. 
> 
> I have no reasonable explanation other than mass hysteria.


As I said originally, it's both more deadly _and more virulent_ than the flu. 

Covid-19 appears to have a similar mortality rate and R0 to the Spanish Flu.

That infected about a third of the global population, killing 2-3% of those infected.

In today's term, for the US, that would mean about 2.5 million deaths (45x more than your figure for the flu). 

That's why people are freaking out for this particular virus. 

It's not hysteria. 

...not to say there isn't some hysteria, but the underlying problem is real.

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## Anti Federalist

yes they have lost their minds

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## Anti Federalist

This was a dry run...that's the conspiracy

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## pcosmar

*Is the world going crazy?* 

Been that way.. 
you are just awake enough to see it getting worse.

and it is getting worse..

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## Suzanimal

> Hello everyone. I haven't posted here in a long time, but used to. I came across a recent article by Ron and it reminded me that maybe I could find fellow voices of reason here. It seems like most of the world is suffering mass hysteria. I figured there would be people like me still here who are just not that concerned about this virus. I don't really think it is some vast conspiracy, nor something created by a government as a weapon. It's just a virus, they happen all the time. You get flu like symptoms for a week and recover. Not a big deal. Yes some people have died. But the numbers are statistically very low. We are a nation of over 300 million and we shut down the whole country and potentially crash the economy over a few thousand with flu symptoms and 100 deaths? I am just in awe of the mass delusion and panic.


yes





> Have you stocked up on Butt Wipe?


only single ply

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## ChiefJustice

> Hello everyone. I haven't posted here in a long time, but used to. I came across a recent article by Ron and it reminded me that maybe I could find fellow voices of reason here. It seems like most of the world is suffering mass hysteria. I figured there would be people like me still here who are just not that concerned about this virus. I don't really think it is some vast conspiracy, nor something created by a government as a weapon. It's just a virus, they happen all the time. You get flu like symptoms for a week and recover. Not a big deal. Yes some people have died. But the numbers are statistically very low. We are a nation of over 300 million and we shut down the whole country and potentially crash the economy over a few thousand with flu symptoms and 100 deaths? I am just in awe of the mass delusion and panic.


Mass hysteria is clearly a big problem which media outlets are clearly exacerbating as much as possible. 

Still the virus, according to the statistics on confirmed cases, I believe has between a 3-4% fatality rate which is significant enough to worry about. Its absolutely not your every day flu. Unchecked the virus can easily infect millions of Americans and it would, with certainty, overwhelm our hospitals.

With millions and millions getting sick, hundreds of thousands could die in this country. Fortunately measures have been taken that will slow the spread.

I feel that without the stringent measures being taken, hospitals would be completely overrun, many will die and the economy will still experience a huge blow.

Rather now that we are trending in the direction of locking down, our economy is tanking dramatically and fast. Its scary to witness, and more frightening than the virus itself.

Its a brutal situation we are faced with and there will be a lot of suffering any direction we go.

I love Ron but I believe he is at least half wrong on his assessment of the situation. Hes downplaying it and I think not acknowledging how devastating this could be to our medical institutions.

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## kpitcher

Do we need another image of the curve? With the infection rate and numbers of 19%+ requiring hospitalization we simply don't have the resources to treat that many patients. Slowing the spread so everyone doesn't get hit at once is the only solution to not have needless deaths. It does feel almost surreal with everything closing down, no one immediately sick, but know it's coming. Very much an "On the beach" style moment.

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## 69360

> As I said originally, it's both more deadly _and more virulent_ than the flu. 
> 
> Covid-19 appears to have a similar mortality rate and R0 to the Spanish Flu.
> 
> That infected about a third of the global population, killing 2-3% of those infected.
> 
> In today's term, for the US, that would mean about 2.5 million deaths (45x more than your figure for the flu). 
> 
> That's why people are freaking out for this particular virus. 
> ...


I don't think that is correct. Without testing the entire US population, you have no idea what the real infection rate would be. Without an accurate number of infections you can't conclude a mortality rate. 

We are seeing no reports this is any more transmissible than the common seasonal flu. But for arguments sake lets say it is twice as bad. So we see 100 million get sick for a few days instead of the normal seasonal 50 million. We see 100,000 deaths instead of the normal 50,000. 

While regrettable and with sympathy to the families of the deceased, this is just not enough to destroy our economy and erode our civil liberties for. Statistically and looking at the big picture we are going to cause more damage to society with this hysteria than the virus does.

We simply aren't advanced on this planet to prevent all death. 25,000 a day still die from starvation in the world and life goes on with very little care from the average person. 100 people a day in the US die in car crashes with not much attention.

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## euphemia

Trust in a benevolent Creator is a powerful thing when the world around us is in turmoil.

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## Danke

> I also haven't posted here in a long time and am back here for the same reason as you 69360. 
> 
> The world is going $#@!ing crazy. 
> 
> WTF do we do next?


stay away from beer and convenient store hot dogs.

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## oyarde

> stay away from beer and convenient store hot dogs.


I say get 'em while you can  but use a designated driver.

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## ChiefJustice

> I don't think that is correct. Without testing the entire US population, you have no idea what the real infection rate would be. Without an accurate number of infections you can't conclude a mortality rate. 
> 
> We are seeing no reports this is any more transmissible than the common seasonal flu. But for arguments sake lets say it is twice as bad. So we see 100 million get sick for a few days instead of the normal seasonal 50 million. We see 100,000 deaths instead of the normal 50,000. 
> 
> While regrettable and with sympathy to the families of the deceased, this is just not enough to destroy our economy and erode our civil liberties for. Statistically and looking at the big picture we are going to cause more damage to society with this hysteria than the virus does.
> 
> We simply aren't advanced on this planet to prevent all death. 25,000 a day still die from starvation in the world and life goes on with very little care from the average person. 100 people a day in the US die in car crashes with not much attention.


I see your point and have had similar thoughts but at the same time if the infection has like a 10-15% chance of killing my parents and other older relatives, and harming other at-risk friends of mine...weigh that against the economy and I know what Id choose.

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## 69360

> I see your point and have had similar thoughts but at the same time if the infection has like a 10-15% chance of killing my parents and other older relatives, and harming other at-risk friends of mine...weigh that against the economy and I know what I’d choose.


Think about this. If we really tank the economy and society falls apart from this hysteria or we just have a great depression type event, how many lives will be lost? I think more than a virus would kill. I have hope this will pass and people will come to their senses within a few weeks. 

 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” – Benjamin Franklin

I found my old Ron Paul 2012 shirt and wore it to work today. That was my statement on all this. I felt a little better.

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## jmdrake

> Yes, but that's after China basically shut down the entire country.
> 
> What would have happened had they not done that?
> 
> A 3% mortality rate, with half the population getting infected, is 45 million people.


In China the mortality rate is 4.0%.  In Italy it is 8.3%.  In the U.S.A. it is 1.5%.  Worldwide it is 4.1%.  Despite all of the criticism of the American healthcare system and Donald Trump, we are doing much better than the rest of the countries that have significant numbers of infections.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

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## 69360

> In China the mortality rate is 4.0%.  In Italy it is 8.3%.  In the U.S.A. it is 1.5%.  Worldwide it is 4.1%.  Despite all of the criticism of the American healthcare system and Donald Trump, we are doing much better than the rest of the countries that have significant numbers of infections.
> 
> https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries


It's very important to note that this mortality rate is based on deaths v. cases confirmed by testing. Without testing the entire population we have no idea of the number of infected with no symptoms or mild self medicated symptoms not requiring medical care. The actual mortality rate could be below 0%.

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## ChiefJustice

> Think about this. If we really tank the economy and society falls apart from this hysteria or we just have a great depression type event, how many lives will be lost? I think more than a virus would kill. I have hope this will pass and people will come to their senses within a few weeks. 
> 
>  They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.  Benjamin Franklin
> 
> I found my old Ron Paul 2012 shirt and wore it to work today. That was my statement on all this. I felt a little better.


I dont disagree with you. Its just that when my familys health enters the equation I more easily shed some of my pragmatic views on the situation.

The economy is at risk of entering another Great Depression, with or without a national shutdown. Its just happening faster.

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## jmdrake

> It's very important to note that this mortality rate is based on deaths v. cases confirmed by testing. Without testing the entire population we have no idea of the number of infected with no symptoms or mild self medicated symptoms not requiring medical care. The actual mortality rate could be below 0%.


It can't get below 0% because that would be a negative mortality rate where the virus was bringing people back to life.    But yes, it could be between 0% and 1%.  And that's basically what Trump was saying about his "hunch" on Sean Hannity weeks ago and everyone jumped his case about it.  The real question people should be asking is why are the socialist countries of western Europe and straight up Communist China having much higher mortality rates if marital law and "free healthcare for all" is the answer to the corona virus?

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## ChiefJustice

> You can't use the confirmed cases v. deaths for morbidity numbers because you don't know how many people are infected but not symptomatic or just had typical flu like symptoms and self medicated etc.


This is a very good point.

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## Anti Globalist

People who are falling for this mass hysteria are crazy.

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## r3volution 3.0

> In China the mortality rate is 4.0%.  In Italy it is 8.3%.  In the U.S.A. it is 1.5%.  Worldwide it is 4.1%.  Despite all of the criticism of the American healthcare system and Donald Trump, we are doing much better than the rest of the countries that have significant numbers of infections.
> 
> https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries


The period from infection to death is quite long.

I think we'll see the death rate rise in the US and other countries where most of the infections are very recent.

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## r3volution 3.0

> I don't think that is correct. Without testing the entire US population, you have no idea what the real infection rate would be. Without an accurate number of infections you can't conclude a mortality rate.


You don't see how the death count would also be understated as a result of a shortage of test kits?




> We are seeing no reports this is any more transmissible than the common seasonal flu.


Sure we are. Google it. Many reputable sources are putting the R0 at about twice that of the common flu, or about the same as Spanish flu. 




> But for arguments sake lets say it is twice as bad. So we see 100 million get sick for a few days instead of the normal seasonal 50 million. We see 100,000 deaths instead of the normal 50,000.


That's based on an unreasonably low mortality rate; can you show me any academic source that puts it that low?

I showed you The Lancet article putting it north of 3%, which is in line with the WHO estimate.




> While regrettable and with sympathy to the families of the deceased, this is just not enough to destroy our economy and erode our civil liberties for. Statistically and looking at the big picture we are going to cause more damage to society with this hysteria than the virus does.


I'm a pragmatist, a cost-benefit person, so I'm open to that kind of reasoning.

But you're dramatically underestimating the cost of inaction.

Also, keep in mind that the public would largely close down the economy on their own initiative, regardless of what the state does.

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## jmdrake

> The period from infection to death is quite long.
> 
> I think we'll see the death rate rise in the US and other countries where most of the infections are very recent.


Nope.  The death rate is really about 1% according to this paper published by the CDC.

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/6/20-0233_article

It was about 12% in WuHan China which is the epicenter of the disease probably because people didn't realize initially how serious it was and so you had people dying without getting good healthcare.

I hate to admit it, but Donald Trump's "hunch" was right.  The WHO estimate of 3 - 4% mortality was an overestimate.

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## wizardwatson

I think we're making it harder to understand than it needs to be.

Every "enlightened" financial related article seems to agree that the market was already F'ed.  Rotten in the root.  The speculative bubble is not coming back after this, this was it.  Covid-19 was just the catalyst.  

I think the same can be said of America.  

We were already crazy/hysterical.  We are obsessed with identity politics.  We argue over pronouns and what bathroom people can go in to.  Even during this crisis we obsess about the racist implications of calling it the "Chinese" virus.

The hysteria of bleeding hearts and throwing Trillions at this and the counter-culture hysteria of "hoax!" and conspiratorial analysis paralysis was already there.  This crisis is simply making it apparent just like with the market.

That's how I see it.

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## heavenlyboy34

Verily, the crazy folks are being allowed out _en masse. _

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## 69360

> You don't see how the death count would also be understated as a result of a shortage of test kits?
> 
> 
> 
> Sure we are. Google it. Many reputable sources are putting the R0 at about twice that of the common flu, or about the same as Spanish flu. 
> 
> 
> 
> That's based on an unreasonably low mortality rate; can you show me any academic source that puts it that low?
> ...


From the CDC website the 1918 flu infected 500,000,000 people and this 2019 flu has infected 250,000

If this thing ran it's course naturally it would not even be close.

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## r3volution 3.0

> From the CDC website the 1918 flu infected 500,000,000 people and this 2019 flu has infected 250,000


The covid-19 epidemic isn't over, obviously, and so that comparison is meaningless. 

At some point, there were only 250,000 cases on Spanish flu.




> If this thing ran it's course naturally it would not even be close.


So you say. The doctors say otherwise.

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