Perhaps it would be helpful to revisit the COVID-19 infection percentages in certain nations. I did this in a post last week. Let's look at the percentages now, a week later, after we've seen spikes in case numbers in some countries. For proper context, we should remember that 0.05% is only one half of one half of 1%, or 20 times smaller than 1%; and that 0.15% is 15% of 1, or nearly 7 times smaller than 1%. I am not including China's numbers because I no longer trust them. I have replaced China with Taiwan and Sweden, mainly because those two nations have not taken drastic measures in response to the virus. The case numbers are as of this morning:
COUNTRY--PERCENT--(CASES/POPULATION)
Spain: 0.168731% (78,797/46.7 million)
Italy: 0.15076% (97,689/60.48 million)
Germany: 0.0693% (57,298/82.8 million)
France: 0.0592% (39,642/66.99 million)
America: 0.0503% (164,610/327.3 million)
Sweden: 0.0363% (3,700/10.2 million)
Taiwan: 0.001279% (306/24.0 million)
Notice that Taiwan and Sweden have the lowest infection percentages among the nations on the list, yet they have not taken the drastic measures that some other nations have taken. Taiwan has not closed its schools. Sweden's schools are still open for all students aged 16 and under. Taiwan and Sweden have allowed most businesses to remain open, including most non-essential businesses, and thus have not put millions of their citizens out of work.
As an interesting side note, guess what percentage of the world's population has caught the virus, per CDC and WHO numbers? As of this morning, there were 803,313 reported cases worldwide. The world's population is 7.8 billion. 803,313 cases out of 7.8 billion means that 0.0103% of the world's population has caught the virus, or that 99.9897% of the world's population has not caught it. Even if we assume that the case numbers are double what has been reported, that would mean an infection percentage of 0.0206%, which would mean that 99.9794% of the world's population has not caught the virus.
For further perspective, compare COVID-19's 803,313 cases after four months with the swine flu's 1.1 billion cases in 12 months in 2009-2010 (April 2009 to April 2010).
Given the fact that all the evidence we have so far tells us that COVID-19's contraction/transmission rate is well below 50%, at this point it seems unlikely that COVID-19 will match the case numbers from the 2009-2010 swine flu pandemic. Yet, during the swine flu pandemic, 93% of American schools stayed open, and virtually all American businesses were allowed to remain open, which is why millions of Americans did not lose their jobs and why the economic impact on our economy was minimal.
COUNTRY--PERCENT--(CASES/POPULATION)
Spain: 0.168731% (78,797/46.7 million)
Italy: 0.15076% (97,689/60.48 million)
Germany: 0.0693% (57,298/82.8 million)
France: 0.0592% (39,642/66.99 million)
America: 0.0503% (164,610/327.3 million)
Sweden: 0.0363% (3,700/10.2 million)
Taiwan: 0.001279% (306/24.0 million)
Notice that Taiwan and Sweden have the lowest infection percentages among the nations on the list, yet they have not taken the drastic measures that some other nations have taken. Taiwan has not closed its schools. Sweden's schools are still open for all students aged 16 and under. Taiwan and Sweden have allowed most businesses to remain open, including most non-essential businesses, and thus have not put millions of their citizens out of work.
As an interesting side note, guess what percentage of the world's population has caught the virus, per CDC and WHO numbers? As of this morning, there were 803,313 reported cases worldwide. The world's population is 7.8 billion. 803,313 cases out of 7.8 billion means that 0.0103% of the world's population has caught the virus, or that 99.9897% of the world's population has not caught it. Even if we assume that the case numbers are double what has been reported, that would mean an infection percentage of 0.0206%, which would mean that 99.9794% of the world's population has not caught the virus.
For further perspective, compare COVID-19's 803,313 cases after four months with the swine flu's 1.1 billion cases in 12 months in 2009-2010 (April 2009 to April 2010).
Given the fact that all the evidence we have so far tells us that COVID-19's contraction/transmission rate is well below 50%, at this point it seems unlikely that COVID-19 will match the case numbers from the 2009-2010 swine flu pandemic. Yet, during the swine flu pandemic, 93% of American schools stayed open, and virtually all American businesses were allowed to remain open, which is why millions of Americans did not lose their jobs and why the economic impact on our economy was minimal.
