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Comment by klenwell | Hacker News Reader

Here's an early estimate graphed by the NY Times at the end of February (scroll down a bit):

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/asia/china-co...

R0 estimated to be 2 - 4. Fatality rate: 0.1 - 3%.

This was the first information I saw that helped me understand why this was more than just a bad flu. Still didn't truly understand it at that point, at least the way I do now that we're experiencing the consequences of failing to contain it.

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In pre-print on Feb 7, this paper initially estimated R0 to be somewhere between 4.7 and 6.6. People dismissed it as being not possible. It was never picked up by the MSM.

Now we're seeing from the both the real world and other studies that it's pretty plausible.

Yep, I read the preprint as soon as it was published and it scared me into buying masks back in mid-February.

Basic math, knowing population density, and then that paper was my "oh shit" moment. Got some half respirators and 300 rolls of toilet paper over the next week.

The toilet paper wasn't to prepare for a post-apocalyptic world. It was because I knew that was the first thing other idiots would buy when news of this thing hit your average Joe :)

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your point, but it sounds like your bragging about being the first person to start hoarding.

I ran some SEIRD epidemiological simulations (I'm not an expert nor in that field), but the death rate in the NY region was indicating a R0 between 4 and 6, not the 2.5 or so I've seen in a bunch of places. Obviously, population density is a factor in that number as well. I'm trying to aggregate forecasts for the US on this website if anyone is interested: https://www.unitarity.com/app/challenges/us-coronavirus-outb...

> This was the first information I saw that helped me understand why this was more than just a bad flu.

I could be wrong but, I feel like I've read if you are healthy + young, it's on average pretty much just like a bad flu (or no symptoms at all).

Maybe on average, but it sounds like the variance is more extreme. I've heard enough horror stories of 30-somethings with no health problems being on death's door from this thing that I don't want to risk it, when I might for flu season (plus, there's a flu shot). I don't want to stop with the physical distancing until there's an effective anti-viral treatment.

> I've heard enough horror stories of 30-somethings with no health problems being on death's door from this thing that I don't want to risk it

While I don't disagree with that, my biggest question is:

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

2.8m people die a year in the US on average. 7.7k/day

what if we heard their stories of going from healthy to death every day in the news?

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