Re: Just wait 2 weeks, Bob
Two weeks is a good timeline: it took Italy 14 days to go from 322 cases to 10,000+, at which point there were not enough hospital beds and ventilators for the hardest-hit victims. California is on Day 3 of their own 14-day count-up. So far the progression looks similar to Italy.*
Nobody I know has jumped off a cliff, Bob. Some people are wearing gloves, and many where I live seem to be spending less time in crowded public areas. I don't see any panic, though.
As far as "just a bad cold", that's ignorant Fox News bullshit. Colds might open up a vulnerable person to pneumonia, and a secondary infection could be fatal, but common colds themselves don't kill. For COVID-19, one would expect 6 or 7 of the Californians on the Day 3 count to shuffle off this morbid curl, mortifying crawl, mortal coil, whatever. And no one in the US is immune; at least with the flu a fair number of people get shots, which are at least 60% or 70% effective.
Shoot, Bob, I thought you'd been kicked off the forum or something. I have to say, I admire your grit. Can't be all that much fun, posting reactionary messages to a forum which seems to get more progressive by the week.
* I arbitrarily started each count-up when known the infections reached around 320 cases. The first week of Italy's count, 322 to 2502, seems to give the infection an initial doubling rate of 2.45 days. (See also this chart.) Applying that number to California, with a starting count of 319 instead of 322, today (Mar. 16) should see 562 cases; the count as of 20:00 EST is 557.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
