Closing in on doma's 4,000 number for TB deaths (the fixed bar I am using) as the indication of extremity which justifies the response.
Clearly the Spanish flu was probably EVEN worse (3-10% death rate, which matches the profile for some but not all countries during this outbreak) - we'll only know that once this one has played out - but 4,000 deaths per day is clearly a scary number, and there's no reason it will stop there. Put another way, 4,000 deaths per day is more than 9/11 but less than the daily death rate during World War II.
We were at 500 at the beginning of the conversation. At this point, the exponential coronavirus curve is relentless and either today or tomorrow may be the day we breach the 2,000 number. A week from today, pari passu, we will be over 4,000.
Due to its woeful response, the US looks likely to be contributing more deaths than anywhere within a month, replacing Italy as the poster child of a country that is overwhelmed. Heck, the US has struggled to deliver testkits, masks and gowns to hospitals, let alone ventilators. As the testkits are distributed, they will reveal who has the disease. Then the US will be matching unattributed deaths from pneumonia with the numbers infected by coronavirus. When that happens, the figures are going to look scary.
I will remember that Biden used Italy as his example of a failed healthcare model simply because they had a humungous outbreak. It isn't only Trump that says stoopid things. Trump just says more of them than everyone else.
By the way, has anyone else noticed that the outbreak in Europe first went crazy in Alpine ski resorts? The people coming back from them were the folks that did most of the early spreading.
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