Should be noted that the numbers in the intro are a bit off, the U.S. now has 57 cases.
https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus...
https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus...
I've been thinking about it and I can't fathom how we would know of every case.
What percentage of adults who get the seasonal flu go see a doctor and get diagnosed, 10%? Coronavirus symptoms mimic the flu and can even by asymptomatic in people, meaning people can easily attribute symptoms to a bad cold/flu or not even notice them. On average someone with coronavirus spreads it to 3-4 other people. It's estimated that the virus started infecting people in early January, but China didn't start quarantining people until 3 weeks later or so.
I just don't see the math adding up, all it takes is a handful of people not seeking treatment in order for it to start spreading without our knowledge. There has to be thousands of additional cases around the world of that just aren't diagnosed, which is how we're suddenly seeing unexpected diagnoses in places without any previous outbreak like Iran.
December 2019. That's why it is called COVID-19 to begin with, because it was first detected in 2019.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/25/cdc-coronav...
And yeah, there are going to be a bunch of people here who won't seek help unless it gets really bad, and who will go to their jobs even if they feel crummy because they need the money, thus spreading it farther and more rapidly.
BTW, we were warned: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/the-t...
(e.g. the story of the person who was fearful after developing flu systems after traveling to China so he checked into the ER for testing and got a $3,500 bill that 'might' be knocked down to $1,400 if he provides 3 years of medical history to prove it wasn't a preexisting condition: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article24047680...)
So we have people who don't want to miss work and people who won't seek medical care unless they're in the later stages of the disease to avoid thousands of dollars of cost. Hopefully it peters out but this could get really ugly.
To a lot of people it's pretty obvious that there are a lot of undiagnosed cases in the wild. They are not testing anyone unless you are coming from a known risk area, which means by definition they can't detect local community outbreaks.