Concerns include:
1. Our health care system does not have “surge” capacity. This is especially true during flu season, when many hospitals run at nearly full capacity. Adding a high volume of patients with respiratory infections — all of whom would require private rooms — will severely strain most institutions. It will further block other important hospital activities, such as elective surgeries and transfers from other hospitals. This is already happening in
northern Italy
.
Reasons for Optimism:
1. We know the disease is mild in most people who get it. At least 80%, most likely more, won’t have an illness bad enough to warrant hospitalization. We’ll have a better idea once testing is more broadly applied, but it would not surprise me if the widely cited case fatality rate of 1-2% is eventually less than half that.
2. Children seem particularly protected from severe coronavirus disease. Many of the sniffles and colds kids experience are due to existing milder coronavirus strains, possibly giving them partial immunity to this more serious new threat.
