/biz/ - Business & Finance

Well I think the best way to reason about this is to compare it to similar outbreaks. The obvious comparison is SARS. SARS led to about 8,100 cases worldwide and was largely confined to China. It had a death rate of about 10%, 780 deaths dead worldwide. SARS was also covered up for a couple of months by the Chinese government which made the outbreak far worse than it would otherwise have been. SARS incubation period was about 5 days and it spread through airborne droplets or fomites (being left on things touched).

This new coronavirus (2019-nCoV) is still being studied so its properties are still up for debate. Nevertheless it likely spreads in the same way as SARS (it is genetically similar to it and the evidence of infected patients also suggests the same transmission mechanisms). The incubation period seems to be the same as SARS or longer. But more significantly, the death rate appears to be far lower (3%). And there was only a very limited coverup during the early outbreak by local authorities. Chinese authorities have actually taken massive precautions to prevent an outbreak, locking down cities bigger than London and cancelling public lunar new year celebrations. In addition, the Chinese public is very wary after the experience of SARS, and virtually everyone knows to take basic precautions during an outbreak, such as wash their hands and wear N95 respirators.

So my guess is it will likely be nowhere near as bad as SARS. So far there have only been about 600 infections. I would imagine it could double, and maybe triple in a worse case scenario, but I think it will mostly be contained in China.

The media is hyping this up like it's ebola or something. It is very serious, but the media gives the impression that we are about to experience an extinction level event, which is highly unlikely. For reference, some strands of ebola have death rates of 90%.

t. literal paranoid about viral pandemics but realist