Earlier quoted context omitted.
59 million people in Hubei province. 67,000 confirmed cases, 3000 deaths. Lets assume all cases were identified. 59 million did not get the disease. It kills 4%. A vaccine will take at least 18 months to develop. Can China keep Hubei locked down at the current rate for 18 months? Could we do that in the West? If the answer is no, what happens when we reduce the social distancing?
The idea is that you have say 1000 ICU spots available. Based on your numbers 4.5% of the cases are deadly, but let’s say 10% are severe-to-deadly and require two weeks of ICU care. So that’s 6,700 people or roughly 94,000 man-days of ICU time. In other words if you slow down the rate of infection enough you could fit that 94k into the 1k of beds over time. But if all of them get sick on day one, you are fucked. Soci…
Average ICU stay is about 2 weeks, so that's 3.6 years to filter everyone through.