Four Quick Thoughts About Coronavirus (COVID-19)

1) The media focus now is on how "US, UK coronavirus strategies shifted following UK epidemiologists' ominous report" noting, according to CNN.com's Nick Paton Walsh,  "attempts to slow, or mitigate -- rather than actively halt, or suppress -- the novel coronavirus could overwhelm the number of intensive care hospital beds and lead to about 250,000 deaths in the UK and more than a million in the United States during the course of the current pandemic." In a contrast of numbers between coronavirus threat and regular flu, Claire Gillespie wrote Feb. 11 at health.com "Overall, the CDC estimates that [between] 12,000 and 61,000 deaths annually [in the US] since 2010 can be blamed on the flu."

2) Scientists like peer-reviewed published studies for credibility, and there hasn't been time for that with the speed and scope of coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Best available information is taking priority for decision-makers reviewing the above study, and another that found "viable [HCoV-19] virus could be detected in aerosols up to 3 hours post aerosolization" according to some of the leading groups and universities including National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health; Princeton University; University of California, Los Angeles; Division of Viral Diseases, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; and  Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health.

3) The Guardian's Michael Safi, Philip Oltermann and Patrick Wintour reported March 15, "Those dying in the Iranian outbreak are significantly younger than elsewhere, with 15% of them younger than 40, according to health ministry statistics." This is important because of how it contrasts with widely-reported news the main risks are for people in their 80s, 70s, and 60s, people with weak immune systems, or a small percent with unlucky DNA. Since viruses mutate, conditions may change.  Historians and scientists note the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 killed most of its estimated 65 million the second time it went around the Earth, and according to the above link "spread like wildfire affecting a third or a quarter of the population of the world."

4) Laurie Garrett, a former Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations, showed the contrast between how the US is fighting the COVID-19 pandemic with a local or state-by-state approach versus many other countries' centralized coordinated efforts. She predicted yesterday "slowly, over the next seven to 10 days, airports will close. Train stations will close." She said "Everybody who has ever been involved in modeling and understanding what was going to happen to America, in a serious epidemic, saw this [ lack of a 'uniform policy across the country'] as a special weakness in the American capacity to respond. [ . . . . ] Things broke down between the states. States closed borders against other states. [ . . . .] [We saw] how urgent it is that you act swiftly in the early stages of your epidemic, and dangerous it is to delay even a day, much less weeks in your response. [ . . . . ] I think we're looking at a very tough three, maybe five, months here in America."