A Coronavirus Crib Sheet from the WSJ

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Holman Jenkins explains in the WSJ: How we got here, where we are going, and how we confront coronavirus.

The Spread:

• The first case emerged in Wuhan on 17 November.
• China/World Health Organization did not acknowledged human-to-human transmission until 20 January.
• Wuhan exported between eight and 16 undetected cases to the U.S. through air travel, giving rise to 1,000 to 9,000 cases in the U.S. by 1 March.
• A global pandemic was likely unstoppable by 20 January.

Testing:

• The Trump administration is guilty of testing stumbles. But unrealistic is the notion that enough testingcould have been made available to contain a novel flu-like virus once it was widely established.

Lockdown:

• The lockdown cure will soon be worse than the disease, imposing social destruction beyond imagining.

The Death Rate:

• Experts have long suspected Covid-19 is more widespread than we know.
• The most up-to-date estimate by the Oxford Center for Evidence-Based Medicine suspects the death rate is a flu-like 0.1% to 0.39%.

Herd Immunity:

• Expect the initial epidemic to burn itself out before a vaccine is available.
• Sweden is perhaps the most candid in anticipating wide infection of its populace.
• New Zealand, resolute in committing itself to a different path, intends to exterminate the virus domestically and then forbid or so strictly regulate foreign travel that the disease cannot re-enter until a vaccine is available.

Value Proposition and Government Response

• Low risk of death for a very large number of people has created a global crisis.
• Recovery of the most severely affected patients on ventilators is rare and involves a great deal of personal suffering.