Note: Today’s email expresses my personal opinions. As always, feel free to reply to me directly.

Despite the extensive media coverage of the Covid-19 coronavirus (“coronavirus” is a general category of viruses, while “Covid-19” is the name given to this particular strain), I know many of you have questions as to how concerned you should be and whether the “social distancing” now being recommended is an over- or under-reaction to the level of threat posted by the virus. Although I have no expertise on the details of this biomedical issue, as a scientist I can speak to how we can deal with this type of uncertainty. Here is what I believe are the key things to keep in mind:

1. Be concerned, but don’t panic. Although scientists do not yet have enough data to be able to give a full picture of the level of danger posed by this virus, it appears likely that the overall death rate will be under 1%, though it may be significantly higher for people with underlying medical issues (e.g., diabetes, asthma, heart disease) and for older individuals. This would make it a few times as dangerous as the flu, but much less dangerous than other diseases like SARS, MERS, or ebola. Moreover, even in very serious cases, the disease is not a death sentence if you have adequate medical/hospital care. (For a case study, see this article from the Wall Street Journal.)
2. This brings us to the key point: We can manage this crisis as long as the medical system is not overwhelmed, an idea being described in the media with the term “flattening the curve.” This term comes from the idea shown in the graph below (this version from Greg Ip’s WSJ column), which tells us that:
   –> If we can slow the transmission rate so it never exceeds hospital capacity, then even people with very severe cases can in most cases be successfully treated.
   –> But if we instead have a spike like that shown in red, we will have both great loss of life and severe economic disruption — far worse than the disruption caused by keeping the case load below the system capacity.
   
3. This, in turn, leads to what I believe is the best answer to the question of whether we are under- or over-reacting, which is that we’ll hopefully never really know for sure. To paraphrase what many health care experts are saying:
   –> If the steps being taken to slow transmission (closures, social distancing, etc.) are successful, everyone will say we over-reacted.
   But that is only because we will not have seen how much worse it could have been.

The human race is actually fortunate that this global outbreak has a relatively low death rate, rather than being something like MERS or ebola. This makes it absolutely critical that we take lessons from this crisis and use them to protect ourselves in the future. Everyone will have opinions as to the most important lessons to take a way, but here are a few that seem particularly important to me, in no particular order:

• This particular disease appears to have emerged from an animal reservoir through a market in China that sold wild animals. So encourage China and other nations to ban this type of market, which will have the side benefit of protecting many endangered species.
• But don’t simply blame China, as there are many other known ways to exacerbate disease outbreaks, and they could begin anywhere. All nations should take steps to reduce the possible ways in which new or more dangerous diseases could emerge. For example, here in the U.S., most scientists consider it likely that widespread use of antibiotics in the agriculture/meat industry is contributing to an increasingly dangerous level of antibiotic resistance, so we should take steps to limit these practices.
  –> Perhaps even more important: We must stop allowing the unscientific voices of the “anti-vax” movement to endanger public health. When you hear someone speak out against vaccines, don’t stay quiet — educate! (in a calm, reasoned, and respectful manner)
• The place where China does deserve some blame is for limiting the free flow of scientific information, which delayed actions that might have kept this outbreak from becoming a pandemic. But again, it’s not just China, and there’s a lesson here: Government censorship is bad in general, and especially bad when it is applied to science. In the U.S. case: It’s good to have a national spokesperson (e.g., VP Mike Pence) for an outbreak like this, but absolutely wrong to tell government scientists that they must clear comments through the spokesperson’s office.
• There is no getting around the fact that diseases can spread rapidly in our globally connected world. Therefore, if we wish to maintain the economic and social benefits of that global connection (and I believe we do) then we must have organizations in place that are constantly monitoring potential threats and can take rapid action when necessary. With apologies if this is getting too political, I think there’s little doubt that we in the U.S. could have managed this crisis better if not for the fact that the White House office set up for pandemic preparedness was shut down two years ago. The office should be immediately reopened and further strengthened.
• All of this should remind of us of the general point that science works. Sometimes there are uncertainties, but we have no better way to address them than through ongoing scientific study. Therefore, while you must always view everything with a critical eye, keep in mind that there is a difference between a gut-based opinion and a scientist’s judgment based on years of hard work and study. Pay particular attention when the vast majority of scientists — whose collective judgment represents many thousands of years of combined study — render a likely verdict. (This applies not just to vaccine safety and pandemic response but also to global warming, nuclear power, GMO crops, and much more.) Always keep focused on what the science actually says; don’t pick and choose your science based on your gut feelings or your political beliefs.

Looking for more detail? There are many great articles about the pandemic being posted every day, but here’s one that I found to be quite detailed and good, and that it seems the author plans to keep up-to-date: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

Making Productive Use of Time While “Social Distancing”

Many people are now spending a lot more time at home than normal. Why not take time to do some learning? For example:

• This is a great opportunity for reading. Unless you are under quarantine, it is safe to visit and support your local bookstore — just make sure you wash your hands fully before browsing books. If you can’t go out, you can get books online.
• If you are watching TV, try watching some educational documentaries. There are many great ones, and I highly recommend both the old (Carl Sagan) and new (Neil deGreasse Tyson) Cosmos series.
• There are many online resources, both free and otherwise, that have great content for learning about a wide variety of topics. Just start searching, and you’ll be amazed at what you find.

Best,
Jeff