My opinion
- 1/10th to 1/3rd of the world's population will contract this over the next year to 18 months.
- Most of us (>99.9%) will survive and recover although some may have some cell damage
- The best strategy is to slow the infection rate as much as possible and protect the vulnerable
- If we can slow the infection rate, it gives us more time to come up with the best strategies, protections and cures
- If we can't slow it down we will overwhelm the medical community and cause several problems
- It is urgent that we have sensible plans to slow the spread and deal with the severe cases
- Yes, panic will be a problem that needs to be avoided
- Difficult discussions need to happen on travel, mass gatherings, who goes to the hospital, where do the medical supplies go, and building or outfitting more capacity.
- Also need to discuss how to keep the economy and infrastructure working with sensible mitigation against spreading the virus.
- Fast tracking medicines and vaccines should be obvious
- Those who want to politicize this need to be on the frontline and have the most contact with the sick. (/sarcasm for those who don't know me)
This will be painful for those who suffer the worst consequences, but we can pull together and keep this from being an outright disaster. Panic, laziness, obfuscation and in-fighting are bad. Planning, creativity and cooperating are good.
For those familiar with the Laffer curve: This is neither as bad as one group of extremists talk about nor is it as inconsequential as a different group of extremists has it. Reality is in between and we need to deal with that.