This is getting rather unsettling. The country is getting closer and closer to a complete lockdown. And intermittently between public assurances, there are doctors and epidemiology experts, even within the CDC, who say that hospitals could be overwhelmed with more pneumonia-symptom patients than they have beds and respirators to care for. I first saw the term in BBC News a few days ago, about "bending the curve" through self-imposed isolation, to prevent a wave of infections that could overwhelm hospital capacity to treat all those infected.

In addition, we are fiercely dependent on China for supplies, for 80% of our phamaceuticals, and for 96% of our antibiotices. And as I cited earlier, at least one source in Chinese news media has threatened to deny supplies and drown America "in a mighty sea of coronavirus".

Oddly on FBN, the Trish Regan and Kennedy shows (their 8PM and 9PM nightly programs) have been taken off the air and replaced by Objectified (celebrity interview re-runs), and Strange Inheritance (re-runs of FBN's version of Antiques Roadshow). FBN officially is saying they suspended the shows to run breaking news on the Covid-19 crisis, but instead they are just playing inane re-runs.

I hope that efforts to contain the virus mean that at almost 8,000 cases diagnosed in the U.S. at this point (out of 321 million total population), and massive testing now being done, that we are near or passing the peak outbreak and new cases will begin to decline, as virtually everyone at risk will either be in isolation or in treatment, and new outbreak clusters increasingly easy to isolate.

But there are certainly voices saying the outbreak could get a lot worse, and cases could explode into the hundreds of thousands where, like in China and Italy, many could die just because there are no more facilities left available to care for those who require hospitalization to recover.
80% have mild/moderate symptoms that don't require hospital care.
About 20% of them do.
About 1% die even with the best care. As shown in Italy (where we know the actual numbers), and in China (where we don't), without that technology the numbers can go a lot higher. Even with the best care many take a month of care, or possibly more, to recover. The entire world is only 10 weeks into this epidemic since China disclosed Coronavirus-19's very new existence on Dec 31st. 10 weeks. There is still a lot we don't know.

I'm also seeing a lot more interviews of Covid-19 patients in their 40's and even younger, who don't have any visible immune problems like asthma or heart disease, healthy relatively young people who are getting whacked by this and require hospitalization. The official narrative is that if you're not over 60 or immune-compromised you're safe. But there are a number who are ostensibly healthy who are requiring hospitalization.
Especially alarming are doctors and nurses infected, and even, as of this writing, two CDC officials.


This much is also true: Even in the best scenario, this is a nation-changing event, and globe-changing event, that will alter the world forever. Telemedicine. Increased home-employment and "social-distancing". A move away from globalization and reliance on foreign manufacturing and supply, especially away from reliance on China. In the best scenario, we will regain our sovereignty and become more self-reliant, more nationalist and less reigned into globalism. While the period of vulnerability of this crisis will pass, the memory of it will not. And while much of our culure will return to relative normal, much will change permanently as a result.