[lubujackson]

So you are arguing that the CURRENT risk is way less, with no consideration given to the exponential spread of the disease as we have seen in China and now South Korea, Italy and Iran? The only thing keeping the exponential spread in check is everyone literally bunkering in place for weeks, but there is no logical reason the spread won't pick up again as soon as people are forced to go out and interact again.

The virus seems to persist for quite a while so you can't simply wait a couple of weeks (or even months) for this to blow over - best case is the seasonal change will slow it considerably, but that isn't a guarantee either. Historically, viruses with these characteristics weaken over time because they don't benefit from killing their host.

So hopefully 2 years from now this will be another annoying virus that comes and goes, that is the best case natural outcome. Maybe we have some breakthrough in vaccines or luck with off-label cures like the malaria drug in trial now, but those are longshots. So it is LIKELY that this is going to be a long and unhappy situation globally.

[vanusa]

That's the thing - the commenter doesn't even bother to distinguish between current and future risk. Let alone the risk to someone living in a major, congested, filthy city v. in a shack on a mountaintop somewhere.

So there's not much we do with their prognosis.