Saw this and copied and pasted it and also changed the location and numbers to reflect something closer to home.
I’ve explained this multiple times now, but here we go - once more, with feeling!
COVID-19 sits in a unique spot on the chart of viral pathogens. As a disease ...it is more virulent but slightly less deadly than the flu. Which may have you wondering ‘what’s the big deal’?
Well, that ‘slightly less deadly’ is kind of misleading. The virus itself is slightly less deadly than the flu. But that’s only true if the spread of it is slowed down, giving people time to get ill, recover, free up hospital bed space and equipment for the next patient, and so on and so forth. It’s not true at all if the entire country catches the virus within just a few weeks of each other and the 20% of patients that require high levels of medical support all require that medical support AT ONE TIME.
So let’s talk about that a little bit more.
COVID-19 is a novel virus. That doesn’t mean ‘new’ necessarily (although it is), but instead refers to the fact that it originated in an animal population then passed to humans. That’s the definition. Two weeks after making that jump, it mutated enough to jump from human to human - and now we have a problem. Because it’s a novel virus, humans have little to no innate immunity to it. That means that, unlike the flu, which has human sequencing RNA/DNA strands and are therefore recognized by the immune system as invasive, this virus does not have human sequencing, and our immune response to it is reduced.
Now, only 3 months after the first case presented, there are two strains. This is a highly adaptable, easily spread, extremely virulent disease. It’s true that most people have a mild form of illness that only requires they stay home, rest, and hydrate. But 20% of people infected require higher levels of care - oxygen supplementation, ventilator support, etc. Now - it’s predicted that 80% of the population will contract the virus. You’re going to get it, I’m going to get it, pretty much everyone is going to get it. So 20% of the 80% of people who contract this virus will need ventilators.
Let’s do math!
Greater Victoria has a population of 367,770 people. 80% of that is 294,216 people. Of those 294,216 people who WILL contract COVID-19, 20% will require hospitalization at a minimum, and most will require ventilator support. 20% of 294,216 is 58,843 people.
So. To sum up. 58,843 will require high levels of medical support, possibly ventilator support, maybe even ECMO support.
Now, if we all go out and spit in each other’s mouths and spread the virus Willy-nilly, it means all 58,843 of those people will require support at roughly the same time.
That’s bad right? We can all objectively agree that that would be a serious problem. There are not 58,843 ventilators in Greater Victoria, I promise.
On the other hand, if we all STAY THE HELL HOME and avoid spreading the disease as much as possible, those 58,843 people will need ventilator support in a more staggered manner.
That’s what flattening the curve means. It doesn’t mean we’re eradicating the virus or “beating” it - only time will do that. Only an effective treatment or a vaccine or a slow building of herd immunity will do that. Flattening the curve means that we slow the spread of the disease so as not to overwhelm the medical community with so many cases that they cannot provide life-saving care to the people who need it. We want to avoid a situation where we have to RATION VENTILATORS to those most likely to survive because we don’t have enough to save everyone. (Of note - in this scenario only 50% of patients who require ventilator support actually survive this disease. So of the 58,843 people who need ventilators about 29,421 will die. Again, this is just in Greater Victoria.)
[ETA: these numbers and estimates are HYPOTHETICALS that assume nothing is done to prevent the spread of the virus and that medical equipment, supplies, and personnel are all therefore in short supply - requiring rationing and wartime-like triaging.]
So if it seems like nothing is happening, that the cases aren’t rapidly increasing, the hospitals aren’t overwhelmed - that doesn’t mean we’ve ‘won’ (and please stop talking about this disease like we’re fighting some kind of weird battle, that’s not what’s happening here, we are AVOIDING CONTACT WITH THE ENEMY) - it means that what we’re currently doing (social distancing, avoiding sick contacts, STAYING THE HELL HOME) is WORKING. It means the disease is spreading slowly enough that we are able to keep up with the medical demand. It means we have to KEEP DOING IT. Until there’s a vaccine, or all 58,843 have made their way through the medical system and we have achieved herd immunity.
Hope this helps you understand the situation we are facing, and why it’s so important and so serious.
Also, if you have hoarded PPE for your personal use and you are not immunocompromised and in need of that PPE for your day to day life - donate it to your local medical community so that the staff can stay safe to care for the influx of patients. Thank you.