On 2/25/2020 6:26 PM, Nico Williams wrote:
Assume USD $2million/participant (a rather low estimate), say 1,000
participants (also low), and 2% of them dying as a result of attending
(a crazy high estimate, but maybe appropriate worst-case estimate),
which yields a loss of USD $40million. That must be in the ballpark for
the costs to all participants to attend a meeting ($2,500 for
lodging, $1,500 for airfarce and local transportation, plus registration
fee, so less, but in the ballpark).
*bleah*
The 2% rate is of those that contract the virus. An initial guess
worst case infection rate could probably be estimated by looking at what
happened with the Diamond Princess - ~700 cases out of a total
population of ~3700 or just around a 19% infection rate in a population
that was cheek to jowl with each other for more than two weeks making
that a .4% death rate if it applied for the entire population - but the
actual number of deaths in that constrained population is more on the
order of .05% . Hubei province in China -where most of the cases have
occurred has a population of 59170000, confirmed cases of 64786 and
deaths at 2563. That's an infection rate of .1%, a 4% death rate for
those who contract the virus, and a .004% death rate when considering
the whole population. Given that the overall death rate for China
last year for all causes was .72% of total population, that .004% isn't
a big contributor. Note also that the day to day infection count in
China is on the decrease and has been for weeks.
(Sources: who.int daily situation report and www.macrotrends.net).
All that's just to say that the statistics are interesting, but not all
that useful to gauge actual risk of death.
Yes, it's scary, and yes, we should be considering options and risks,
but let's try not to let our hind brains take over our reasoning.
That said - do what you need to feel safe.
Later, Mike
