Two percent isn't low. I'd say flu's 0.1% is low. — Michael

Two percent is about the same mortality rate as the Spanish flu (I don't know where the 20% figure came from), which killed about 30 million people by the time it ended. The coronavirus has a similar infection rate as the Spanish flu. However, as has been quoted here, its mortality may be overestimated, and its infection rate may go down as well if we make the best effort to contain it. But the "nothing to worry about" attitude certainly isn't going to help in that.

How about part of the response is not having children?

I sympathise with your sentiment, but it is not that simple. Say some regions do that and their enemies don't then their enemies will overpower them in the future. Also there is the demographic problem of an aging population not being supported by younger people.

I think some kind of managed reduction in population is the way forward. However what is more likely that we will have an unmanaged, unplanned reduction.

We have 12 new cases in the UK today, some of whom contracted it in the country, from an unknown source. Apparently there has been a jump to 1,000 in Iran, I expect this is an underestimate. Also South Korea is saying that efforts to trace people who have had contact with infected individuals is failing. So it is showing signs of spreading more widely now, with countries failing to contain it.

Perhaps...hopefully...but I have no doubt humans have been through cataclysmic events in the past, and also no doubt that once life became more or less comfortable again, dogmatic slumbers were promptly resumed.

How about part of the response is not having children? — schopenhauer1

Oddly enough children don't seem to be affected much by this virus.

On the plus side a great depression or collapse might contribute towards ameliorating the effects of carbon emissions. — Janus

Yes and it might sober us up a bit, from this drunken populist malaise. — Punshhh

Perhaps...hopefully...but I have no doubt humans have been through cataclysmic events in the past, and also no doubt that once life became more or less comfortable again, dogmatic slumbers were promptly resumed. — Janus

Well, the coronavirus is more of a media pandemic than any kind of actual cataclysmic event. Until the next media fear gets into high gear I suppose.

And more deadly flu epidemics haven't had an effect on GDP growth: World economy grew at a rate of something like 5% in 1968-69 when the Hong Kong flu killed 1 million people around the World.

On the plus side a great depression or collapse might contribute towards ameliorating the effects of carbon emissions.

Yes and it might sober us up a bit, from this drunken populist malaise. — Punshhh

Why the content-less name-calling? Janus simply pointed out a fact. Carbon emissions being a direct reflection of economic activity, a reduction of economic activity BY DEFINITION means a reduction of carbon emissions. There is nothing to argue here.

I think some kind of managed reduction in population is the way forward. However what is more likely that we will have an unmanaged, unplanned reduction. — Punshhh

Populations in Western countries ARE already reducing themselves. Look at the birth rates. However, our politicians want to change that by massively importing high-fertility populations from the 3rd world, in order to reverse that trend. (While at the same time bleeting about needing more taxes to reduce carbon emissions.)
Go figure.

Why the content-less name-calling? — Nobeernolife

Like TDS?

However, our politicians want to change that by massively importing high-fertility populations from the 3rd world, in order to reverse that trend. — Nobeernolife

Are you sure that is the motive?

However, our politicians want to change that by massively importing high-fertility populations from the 3rd world, in order to reverse that trend. — Nobeernolife
Are you sure that is the motive? — Monitor

There can be other motives of course (think cheap labour big capital, cultural disembedding etc etc), but replacement population is obvious and often directly mentioned.
I.e. see on the UN page: https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/ageing/replacement-migration.asp

Not exactly a secret.

Like TDS? — Monitor

TDS is not name-calling. If you think the Trump Derangement Syndrome is not a real psychological phonemenon, you are probably caught in it.

There can be other motives of course — Nobeernolife

Like population growth is the basic and natural reason for economic growth?

And that decrease in the size of the economy (zero or negative growth) means an economic depression, which means extremely angry voters in the next elections and current politicians losing their jobs?

Not very hard to figure out.

Not exactly a secret. — Nobeernolife

Interesting publication.

TDS is not name-calling. If you think the Trump Derangement Syndrome is not a real psychological phonemenon, you are probably caught in it. — Nobeernolife

I can not find any evidence of that. It's not in the DSM. But this is not the thread for that conversation. But thanks for the assumption that I'm deranged. Of course, that's not name calling either is it?

Well, the coronavirus is more of a media pandemic than any kind of actual cataclysmic event. Until the next media fear gets into high gear I suppose.

And more deadly flu epidemics haven't had an effect on GDP growth: World economy grew at a rate of something like 5% in 1968-69 when the Hong Kong flu killed 1 million people around the World. — ssu

I haven't said it is a cataclysmic event, but it could well be thought of as one if it becomes established as a seasonal virus with both an infection and a mortality rate much higher than the seasonal flu and when the likely economic effects which will manifest if it becomes so are taken into account.

Also past economic effects at times of genuine economic growth are not reliable guides to probable future economic effects when the fact that there is no real economic growth today, but merely the semblance of growth created by burgeoning credit, is taken into account.

Not very hard to figure out. — ssu

True, simplistic analyses are easy.

Like population growth is the basic and natural reason for economic growth? — ssu

Only if seen from the very narrow viewpoint of manufacturers looking for a growing market. Not for the country as a whole. Otherwise, please explain why the places with the highest population growth are typically proverbial sh1tholes, while the population the most developed countries is shrinking.

I haven't said it is a cataclysmic event, but it could well be thought of as one if it becomes established as a seasonal virus with both an infection and a mortality rate much higher than the seasonal flu and when the likely economic effects which will manifest if it becomes so are taken into account. — Janus

And this is of course the reason for there to be the media frenzy. The real question is how probable the possibility of a pandemic is.

For example, you can still get the bubonic plague in rural US and even if it can be treated by antibiotics, the overall mortality rate is something like 11% (hence the killer is still far more deadlier than the corona virus). Plague still gets sometimes into the news if there are multiple infections. But it's contained.



Malaria kills a lot of people even today, but anybody understands that going to a country with malaria without starting to eat anti-malaria pills is just stupid. We have already seen a large ebola outbreak (which a lot of medical people were worried about before it happened) and yet it didn't cause a pandemic. So hence the argument can be made that a) modern medicine, b) global cooperation in preventive measures and c) global communication in the internet age really broken the back of deadly pandemics?

Just think of the case if we would have deaths similar to the Hong Kong flu of the 1960's.

If the death toll would reach 1 million, what do you think the media response would be?

Also past economic effects at times of genuine economic growth are not reliable guides to probable future economic effects when the fact that there is no real economic growth today, but merely the semblance of growth created by burgeoning credit, is taken into account. — Janus

I think that many times these things are used as simple scapegoats to hide normal economic fluctuations. But if huge quarantines are imposed, the economic consequences are obvious.

I see this actually in a positive light. We still cherish human life so much that we do let it get in the way of business and the economy.

Only if seen from the very narrow viewpoint of manufacturers looking for a growing market. Not for the country as a whole. Otherwise, please explain why the places with the highest population growth are typically proverbial sh1tholes, while the population the most developed countries is shrinking. — Nobeernolife

A bit off the topic, but I'll try to answer. The answer is no.

Firstly, the simple and historically quite proven fact is that with growing prosperity fertility rates plunge. In the poorest countries having a lot of children is the basic (hopeful) guarantee that at least somebody is going to take care of you when you are old and cannot work, hence you don't have to become a beggar. Not so in more prosperous countries. Hence high fertility rates show actually how poor the countries are.

Secondly, it's not just the manufacturers, it's the governments themselves. Decrease in the population is not only a genuine cause for low economic growth, but also it makes a huge problem for the present welfare system. Just look at Japan. Or basically any rural community where there are just old people around and no children going to school. And the hopes of governments that want their population to grow are quite down to Earth. The rates governments are happy about is fertility rates of 2,1+, not of 5.



Because with a perpetual fertility rate less than 2, well, you can estimate when the last humans simply die away from existence in this World. Perhaps that's the pipe-dream of the anti-natalism lunatics...

A bit off the topic, but I'll try to answer. The answer is no.

Firstly, the simple and historically quite proven fact is that with growing prosperity fertility rates plunge. In the poorest countries having a lot of children is the basic (hopeful) guarantee that at least somebody is going to take care of you when you are old and cannot work, hence you don't have to become a beggar. Not so in more prosperous countries. Hence high fertility rates show actually how poor the countries are.

Secondly, it's not just the manufacturers, it's the governments themselves. Decrease in the population is not only a genuine cause for low economic growth, but also it makes a huge problem for the present welfare system. — ssu

I know all of this, and I know economists and politicians fall into this shallow line of thinking.
Basing economic growth on an ever growing population is a fools game. Yes, more consumers mean bigger markets, but they also mean more need for jobs, more demand for government services, more load on the environment, more pollution, more imports, more ressource consumption, more, more more. Just how many more millions do you want to add to the 120 that already occupy the relatively small area of Japan? How much more population does Hong Kong need?

On the other side, how about the economic success of high-birthrate places like the Congo, Haiti? Continue the list as you wish.

Yes, the population imbalance created by a shrinking population is a problem. But what governments should aim at is a stable population (birthrate about 2) and not an massively growing population.

Clearer?

I actually think you're downplaying the risk of covid-19 a bit too much. The comparison with ebola isn't warranted because the incubation time of ebola is much shorter, so it's easier to contain than covid. And that's the main problem here that we're looking at a situation where enough people get infected: the disease turns endemic and we have a seasonal, highly contagious disease with an average mortality rate between 1% or 2%. Like regular flu it cannot be contained like the plague either.

Are you alright, did you get out of the wrong side of the bed this morning?

Firstly I wasn't aware that I was having an argument with Janus. Secondly, I'm not a eugenicist, I'm discussing the effects and efforts to combat coronavirus.

I hear what you are saying about pandemics, but I agree with Benkei, that this virus is so highly contagious that it is different to the other pandemics.

I can't see anyway to avoid it becoming globally endemic. The only way we are to avoid this is through effective vaccination, which will take over a year and to administer it widely will take a long time.

Firstly, the simple and historically quite proven fact is that with growing prosperity fertility rates plunge. In the poorest countries having a lot of children is the basic (hopeful) guarantee that at least somebody is going to take care of you when you are old and cannot work, hence you don't have to become a beggar. Not so in more prosperous countries. Hence high fertility rates show actually how poor the countries are. — ssu

It is not clear which is the cause and which is the effect though. Also, there is no consistent correlation... Birthrate in Israel is 3.1 and in Saudi 2.6, both of which is well above replacement level. And these are wealthy countries.

Secondly, it's not just the manufacturers, it's the governments themselves. Decrease in the population is not only a genuine cause for low economic growth, but also it makes a huge problem for the present welfare system. — ssu

True. However, I still call this shallow thinking. And you can see the disastrous result of e.g. the EU policy of importing masses of third world migrants straight into the European welfare systems, where, instead of solving the pension problem, they increase it.

Yes, the population imbalance created by a shrinking population is a problem. But what governments should aim at is a stable population (birthrate about 2) and not an massively growing population.

Clearer? — Nobeernolife

What government aims for massively growing population I'd ask? The last example was Ceausescu's Romania, and not only did that policy fail, but that dictatorship has long past gone.

And typically any policies implemented have the objective of just what you said above: to curb the negative population growth, have at least a stable population, if not mildly growing. Good example of this is, just to give one example, the Danish state:



Singapore might be the best example of how wrong policies using linear forcasts can be. Singapore earlier feared that it would have a population crisis and took drastic measures to curb population growth. The crisis never came and now the government implements policies to get Singaporeans to have more babies. The theory of Demographic Transition is quite old, proposed in 1929 by Warren Thompson, yet has been a good model, but not used or understood. As typically happens, the model was brushed aside with far more popular forecasts predicting out of control population growth.

Doom and gloom sells.

I actually think you're downplaying the risk of covid-19 a bit too much. The comparison with ebola isn't warranted because the incubation time of ebola is much shorter, so it's easier to contain than covid. And that's the main problem here that we're looking at a situation where enough people get infected: the disease turns endemic and we have a seasonal, highly contagious disease with an average mortality rate between 1% or 2%. Like regular flu it cannot be contained like the plague either. — Benkei

Firstly, Ebola is far more deadlier. Fatality rate is about 50%. It was the thing, before the West African Ebola outbreak of 2013-2016, that many virologists worried about. Well, that amounted to 28 600 infections and 11 000 deaths.

But think of the response already and what it would be in the case of dramatic growth in infections, Benkei.

How many infections in let's say Belgium would make the Dutch authorities to seal off the border? Or the other way around? Belgium has now I think one infection. The Netherlands I guess 10. Let's take here a comparison of a true deadly pandemic: in two weeks of it's emergence of H3N2 in Hong Kong in 1968 roughly about half a million had been infected in Hong Kong. Covid-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus was first detected last December and the infections confirmed is below 100 000 world wide.

The thing is, if infections started to rise to the level of H3N2 pandemic in let's say Netherlands (meaning hundreds of thousands of infections), I would guess that quite quickly there would be a lock-down of the entire nation. And we would know about it in minutes after the decision would be made.

Sorry, but I think that this coronavirus epidemic will at worst be perhaps in the category of Swine flu of 2009. So that's bad, but it isn't anything like what we are afraid with a pandemic. Swine flu killed a little below 20 000 people with 6 million infected. We did live past the 2009 Swine flu, just as we did live the Ebola outbreak. And I think the reasons why none of these came to be similar incidents as the Black Death, the Spanish Flu or even H3N2 is because the reasons I mentioned earlier.

I can't see anyway to avoid it becoming globally endemic. The only way we are to avoid this is through effective vaccination, which will take over a year and to administer it widely will take a long time. — Punshhh

Simple containment procedures and people washing their hands works also, actually. And a global epidemic is called a pandemic. Our interconnected World makes influenza epidemics quite easily pandemics. The lethality of these pandemics has gone down a lot.

Swine flu killed a little below 20 000 people with 6 million infected. — ssu

Swine flu killed 150,000 - 575,000 people with 700 - 1,400 million infected. It had a case fatality rate of 0.01 - 0.08%.

Let's hope that COVID-19 with its 2% case fatality rate doesn't spread like the Swine flu, eh? That'd be 20 million dead.

I think precisely that because the draconic measures that China enacted aren't quickly used in the Netherlands and neigbouring countries we do run a reasonable risk of this becoming endemic.

The Swine Flu had a mortality rate of .02% and an R0 of 1.2 to 1.6. It's not at all comparable with Covid-19. Covid-19 has an estimated mortality rate of 50 to 100 times higher and currently the R0 of Covid-19 is estimated at 2.2. Covid-19 is both more deadly and more contagious than the Swine Flu. So again, I think you're underestimating the risk a bit here.

On a final note, my parents and my wife's parents are in an at-risk age category, with a case fatality rate of 8% and my dad in particular has a chronic respiratory disease, which increases it by another 8%. So that's 16% chance for my dad, which is too high for my liking.

I'm not expecting world-shattering consequences from this virus. But it should definitely be taken more seriously than SARS or Swine Flu.

Going on those numbers and transposing it to Covid-19 would mean 875-1,750 million infected and with a worst case fatality rate of about 2% would mean 17,500,000 to 35,000,000 million deaths. And that's assuming I can correct the infection by dividing by the R0 of Swine Flu and multiplying it with the R0 of Covid-19, which is probably wrong as transmission is an exponential function.

For perspective: the lower bound with this conservative estimate is the equivalent of the entire population of the Netherlands.

the mortality rate for Corona is about 2%, while that for normal influence is about 0.1%. Ergo, the Chinese Corona is about 20 more deadly. NOT the same. — Nobeernolife

Holy MacKarel, you are a genius!! Not only can you tell that .001 goes 20 times into .02, but you can also tell that .001 <> .02.

I admire you for your superior math skills. Do you have a Ph.D. in math, perchance, from some better university?