Once again, this Virus panic needs to be put into perspective:
From the CDC website: Number of deaths for leading causes of death: (Per Year)
Heart disease: 647,457
Cancer: 599,108
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 169,936
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 160,201
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 146,383
Alzheimer’s disease: 121,404...
Diabetes: 83,564 Influenza and Pneumonia: 55,672 Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis: 50,633 Intentional self-harm (suicide): 47,173
Bottom line: you have a higher risk of dropping dead of a heart attack, an accident, cancer, lung disease, stroke, Alzheimer's than from the Covid-19 Virus as of today's date.
Add to that the combined total of deaths from diabetes, flu & pneumonia, liver or kidney failure or suicide.
If we so fear death we may as well stay locked up in our homes until we end up dying anyway.
We really need to get back to reality. Heart patients are suppose to change diet & exercise habits,
With Covid-19 we are suppose to use common sense to avoid getting it or passing it on.
There will always be idiots who do NOT use common sense, fortunately, they're not the majority.
@ram1901, I'm sure this has been mentioned before (and I've been lurking on this thread since it began, and have read all 815 pages), we're just about 42% of the way through 2020 and are at >100k deaths for Covid. IMO (and this is solely my observational opinion) there are basically 3 possible short-term outcomes:
1) As a society, we tilt towards more responsible behavior and
infection rates fall - regardless of successful drug/vaccine treatment discoveries (least likely)
2) The USA continues on the path we're on - localized & fragmented behavior, with varying effectiveness, resulting in a more or less consistent infection rate - and
the rate of new infections/deaths stays about the same (more likely)
3) Our fearless leadership continues to push for reopening, restarting the economy, ignoring science and undermining responsible individuals, health/medical organizations, ideas & behaviors, and we experience a large second wave, similar to the 1918-1920 flu pandemic;
infection rates dramatically increase (most likely)
For option #1 that will land Covid somewhere just below cancer and well above Alzheimer's.
For option #2, it would put us on track for roughly
250k deaths in 2020 assuming the math stays consistent and no effective treatments are discovered before the end of the year. This would put Covid as the 3rd leading cause of death.
For option #3, prediction is a little more difficult for a non-medical professional like myself, but will most certainly approach cancer and heart disease as the most common causes of death, by the time 2020 is over. And if we don't get a handle on it by 2021....well...I don't want to think about that.
Again, this is all my opinion/observation and I'm no doctor, epidemiologist or public health professional.
/TCP
PS: There is always the chance that an anti-black swan event will somehow make the coronavirus disappear, but as they say in the military, hope is not a strategy.