On March 16, Imperial College London released a report detailing the impact of non-pharmaceutical intervention into the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic to reduce the death rate. You can read the Imperial College report on COVID-19 here.
At first glance, it seems like just another scholarly report about COVID-19, but the implications of the report are staggering.
One Twitter user created a thread distilling the findings of Imperial College for everyone to get a sense of what they are predicting could happen in a few different scenarios.
We can now read the Imperial College report on COVID-19 that led to the extreme measures we've seen in the US this… https://t.co/Ad8ETZRp0Q— Jeremy C. Young (@Jeremy C. Young) 1584468215.0
One of the more frightening estimates of the report is that 4 million Americans could die in a span of three months if we did nothing and let it spread.
How many is 4 million people? It's more Americans than have died all at once from anything, ever. It's the populati… https://t.co/sLiVA96IDe— Jeremy C. Young (@Jeremy C. Young) 1584468610.0
When compared to events that have historically outstanding mortality rates like the Holocaust and World War II, the fact that COVID-19, if it goes untreated, would kill more people than those events is outrageous.
The report really makes it clear that things like social distancing, canceling major events, and limiting the spread by doing rudimentary things like washing our hands is so crucial because it mitigates the disease in a way that literally impacts how many people would die if we didn't.
Suppression must become a part of our lives for the foreseeable future. According to Imperial College, the only way we can limit the spread from entering the more major mortality numbers is to continue to work to suppress the disease until a successful vaccination is created and administered. If this doesn't happen, the virus can spread and continue to wreak havoc.
So, if you know anyone that is not taking this pandemic seriously and just brushing it under the rug, make them read this study and this thread. Maybe it will help them see just how serious we should be taking this time right now.
