The Coronavirus

[Warren Dew]

(04-16-2020, 04:23 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: On Rachel’s show last night, she reported on one New York City hospital’s maternity ward.  After an incident where one of the pregnant women was contagious with Coronavirus, they began testing all women being admitted.  The result?  One woman in eight had the virus, most not showing symptoms but contagious.  As no one suggested that woman of childbearing age are not typical of the general population, one in eight may be typical in New York City.

In a way that is bad news.  Social distancing is not preventing the virus from reaching the general population.  Even as the city’s curves are beginning to bend down, the virus has become common in the general population.

This should be unsurprising to anyone who understands the math.  The fact that the NY curve bent over gradually, rather than in sharp increments, showed that the change from exponential growth to exponential decline was being driven by a reduction in the vulnerable population as they got sick and recovered.  The numbers were consistent with a 10% total infection rate being required, so one in eight sounds about right.

If NY lets off significantly on mitigations, 10% will no longer be sufficient, and exponential growth will start again.