Trying to keep the evil genie in the bottle.
Coronavirus is about 30 times more lethal than the flu, according to the best estimates available at this moment. However, if it becomes more established, it will likely decline in mortality and be seen as another noxious virus.
What governments were hoping to accomplish was to contain the virus so it would literally die out. I don’t think that will happen at this point. There are simply too many people infected now.
Once covid-19 sweeps through countries, the 30-fold difference in mortality will become apparent. Lots of people get flu shots, but no one gets a covid-19 shot. That means less herd immunity and a faster and more widespread rate of infection.
The second phase will be efforts to slow the transmission while a vaccine is developed. Vaccine development will take another 12 to 18 months, but the vaccine will be a great help if we can keep the virus from widely spreading before then. My guess is our chances of that are low, but not impossible. All of the actions to minimize community transmission will affect certain sectors of the economy heavily. Sporting events, tourist travel, movies, and the like will be impacted. This has secondary effects on the energy industry and so on.
Once the initial sweep of the virus passes through the country, survivors will be less likely to die, meaning the mortality drops next year by a large factor, aided by the vaccine.
Until then, epidemiologists and Wall Street are concerned about that 30-fold difference in mortality and the risks of widespread community transmission. Like KBLB, it’s hard to predict what will happen with any certainty.
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