Holy Flying Cows, Batman!

In an article in The Atlantic the author notes:

The Harvard epidemiology professor Marc Lipsitch is exacting in his diction, even for an epidemiologist. Twice in our conversation he started to say something, then paused and said, “Actually, let me start again.” So it’s striking when one of the points he wanted to get exactly right was this: “I think the likely outcome is that it will ultimately not be containable.” Containment is the first step in responding to any outbreak. In the case of COVID-19, the possibility (however implausible) of preventing a pandemic seemed to play out in a matter of days. Starting in January, China began cordoning off progressively larger areas, radiating outward from Wuhan City and eventually encapsulating some 100 million people. People were barred from leaving home, and lectured by drones if they were caught outside. Nonetheless, the virus has now been found in 24 countries...

Lipsitch predicts that, within the coming year, some 40 to 70 percent of people around the world will be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19. 

But, he clarifies emphatically, this does not mean that all will have severe illnesses. “It’s likely that many will have mild disease, or may be asymptomatic,” he said. As with influenza, which is often life-threatening to people with chronic health conditions and of older age, most cases pass without medical care. (Overall, around 14 percent of people with influenza have no symptoms.)

Yes, he said 70% of the world population will get infected! That is almost 5 billion people. Worse than the 1348 plague. It would concern me to say something like that. That would be 14 million or so in Greater New York.

What is the basis for such a statement. We really know so little at this stage that such a statement in my opinion is reckless at the very least if this is what was really said. We do not really know how it is spread, lots of conjecture, and we do not have adequate clinical experience, in my opinion.

There are time we should just keep our guesses to ourselves.