Hey America, I’m Talking to You: Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures
I’m pressing publish even as I know this is way, way, way outside of my comfort zone.
Part 1
What follows is my interpretation of coronavirus, as explained to me by my favorite family medical professional. You should know, I’m not a medical professional, and while I checked the stats and linked to sources for the facts, please do what your favorite medical professional advises. I’m merely attempting to break it down in a way that breaks through.
There are 331M people in the US.
Approximately 109M of them are over 50, so roughly a third.
Generally incurable and ongoing chronic diseases affect about 133 million Americans, so as many as 40% of us are at elevated risk for coronavirus, one way or another.
And while we don’t exactly know what will happen in the US, we can forecast different scenarios and outcomes based on what’s happened in China and Italy.
We do know there is no vaccine for coronavirus, that it’s very contagious, and likes groups of people.
So first, let’s look at our environment. China’s population is 1.4B or roughly four times bigger than ours, and by ours, I mean the US. China and the US are approximately the same sizes in terms of landmass, which means their population density is much higher than ours. They average 375 people/square mile, while we average 93. As mentioned, we do know coronavirus is very contagious and likes groups of people. That could be less of a factor if we spread out via self-quarantining and social distancing.
Italy’s population is 60M, but it’s a much, much smaller country, in terms of landmass. Italy is 32 times smaller than the US and China, which means there are approximately 532 people/square mile in Italy.
Again, it could be to our advantage to spread out, as we do know that coronavirus is very contagious and likes groups of people. See the debacles on the cruise ships as evidence too: close quarters, recycled air, everyone gets it.
Italy is currently getting hammered. Wuhan did too. It’s a city of approximately 11M people in China…
