fear mongers love exponential logic. Damn liars.
CoViD-19 has some interesting unusual features. Spreads rapidly among people without most of them having symptoms that can be recognized easily. Hard to count what you don't see. A claim on mortality among the affected population requires complete counting of those who have contracted the virus, which we really don't have without diagnostic testing for the virus.
Early rates, like 2%, 2.5%, or even say 6% in elderly or compromised subsets, appear to be false estimates. The little South Korean church population, where authorities tested the whole congregation for the virus, produced a 0.7% figure in a skewed elderly population with inadequate treatment.
The fear is that everyone will contract the virus within a couple of months, and that medical facilities will be overwhelmed with patients needing assistance in breathing, like in Italy.... Italy has an "older" population that many other countries, with social patterns and population concentrations that favor quickly spreading the virus. It has a medical system that is "socialist", single-payer government system, now making life and death decisions, telling older folks "sorry we can't help you". Because the resources need to be effectively applied to patients with better hopes of favorable outcomes....
It appears that CoViD-19 is not affecting younger populations as severely, possibly due to vaccination statistics in the past decade or two, where many younger people received vaccinations for closely related corona virus epidemics.
Mortality stats are very dependent on the medical treatment facilities and access. The 2% rates reported in some areas reflect almost no treatment applied.
Efforts to "flatten the curve", as government-based programs generally go, will include public heath measures like quarantine measures. People can flatten the curve more efficiently with personal choices and behavior considerations..... less social contact, more "social distance". This is very significant, and can mean that we will not overwhelm our actual medical treatment capacities, and could mean a very significant reduction in the mortality stat.
More testing, universal testing, and self-quarantine measures for carriers, would help a lot.
Personal hygiene will make a huge difference in individual outcomes. Knowing the facts about the virus, and critical use of disinfectants where or when needed can be a huge factor as well.
CoViD-19 is spread via air and fluids from the respiratory system, hand actions or breathing, sneezing, and coughing. It is easily destroyed by disinfectants, such as soap, or oxidizing gases like ozone or chlorine. A swimming pool properly chlorinated, or the chlorine vapors close to the pool, are effective levels. Any public space treated with such an atmosphere would be "safe" except for direct physical contact, or contact within a few feet.
I am impressed with the public awareness we have achieved, and the measures taken generally. I don't think our "mortality rate" will exceed 0.1% for folks under thirty, 0.5% for anyone under sixty who has no underlying factors. And 1.5% for older or significantly compromised folks who get oxygen assistance. Still a significant event, with 5k to 20k national US deaths, equal to the H1N1 of 2009 at least.
