Thanks for the article. One thing I’m wondering about that has implications for the large scale pandemic case is how much equipment for “mechanical ventilation and sometimes ECMO (pumping blood through an artificial lung for oxygenation)” does society have and what are the consequences of not having access to such equipment? Would such people die? In that case the fatality rate would grow massively to something like 25 to 32%.
Whether there is enough equipment would depend upon how many get sick at once, can more than one person use the same equipment in an interleaved fashion, how long each sick person needs the equipment, are their good alternatives to the equipment, and how quickly additional equipment could be built or improvised.
So the case I’d be worried about here would be a very quick spread where you need rare expensive equipment to keep the fatality rate down where it is currently.
Thanks for the article. One thing I’m wondering about that has implications for the large scale pandemic case is how much equipment for “mechanical ventilation and sometimes ECMO (pumping blood through an artificial lung for oxygenation)” does society have and what are the consequences of not having access to such equipment? Would such people die? In that case the fatality rate would grow massively to something like 25 to 32%.
Whether there is enough equipment would depend upon how many get sick at once, can more than one person use the same equipment in an interleaved fashion, how long each sick person needs the equipment, are their good alternatives to the equipment, and how quickly additional equipment could be built or improvised.
So the case I’d be worried about here would be a very quick spread where you need rare expensive equipment to keep the fatality rate down where it is currently.