[sciinfo]

If most people don't care to prevent infection, the hospitals and medical resources will soon be overwhelmed, the death rate will surge from 0.5-4% (no exact figure at the moment) to 10-20% like earlier in Wuhan. When viral load in the environment becomes sufficiently high, some young people will be taken away by it too, as in the case of several Wuhan doctors who sacrificed themselves under that circumstance.

Among the ~16-19% who are hospitalized and recover, you may suffer through weeks of pneumonia and your lungs could be damaged long-term.

Even if you're lucky to be among the 80% who survive without hospitalization, you could still be the vector who directly or indirectly infect someone you care about.

[kspacewalk2]

>the death rate will surge from 0.5-4% (no exact figure at the moment) to 10-20% like earlier in Wuhan

Those percentages come from different samples altogether and cannot be compared. 10-20% is heavily biased toward people who were admitted before there were even reliable tests for the virus or a recognition that it's novel and serious. Now you're comparing that to 0.5-4% which includes a bunch (though by no means close to all) of mild cases who got picked up by the tests but may not have required a hospital visit at all. What's the point of mentioning two numbers that aren't just unreliable and biased, but unreliable and biased in different ways?

[sciinfo]

Yes, I think I might have mixed up stats of different kinds (Posting too late at night, sorry).

However, the point stands that fatality rates will likely go up a lot if medical resources are overwhelmed. Long-term lung damage is also another risk for younger people and its rate will also go up.

[onetimemanytime]

Very true, the low end stats are for regions with few infections. If say, 1 million ppl get in NYC, expect a lot higher rates, as the health system cannot do much with that many people.

[Medicalidiot]

^This is exactly why we should take this seriously. Even if this "isn't a big deal" that attitude will get people you love and care about sick potentially leading to their death. I'm advocating that people be mindful and try to take this very seriously.