covid; stats; saying this mostly to reassure myself
So I ran some numbers.
Even if you only consider New Orleans, where it's pretty bad right now compared to most of the country...
And even if you assume the real number of cases are ten times what's being reported...
And even if you ignore the fact most of us are under 70 here AFAIK... ;p
If you factor in the current death rate and multiply it out, current odds of having COVID-19 here and dying from it are around 0.07%
On a sociological and humanitarian scale, that's still terrifying. That's like 270 people dead right there, and given over 200 are already gone, that figure must be low. And things are only going to get worse from here.
But still. In the grand scheme of things, any individual person's odds of getting through this, even in this particularly rough-hit part of the country, are still pretty high.
I know that doesn't make everything OK, especially since containment isn't working so great and those numbers are going to get somewhat worse. But I really needed to hear the rest of it right now--to hear that death probably *isn't* right outside our door.
covid; stats; saying this mostly to reassure myself
The thing that freaks me out the most is that our numbers are based on flawed and changing data. We went into this thing thinking no one under 40 was going to get anything but "mild" symptoms, and that anyone under 20 would be asymptomatic.
A few months later, we learn that "mild" means full on pneumonia, extremely painful difficulty breathing, and more than a handful of under-40 folks have very visibly and obviously died due to negligence for assuming they'd 'walk it off'. Also, people under 20 apparently are getting it pretty bad. The first infant died.
Outliers? Maybe. Perhaps. But we have to acknowledge there's something about this fucking virus we don't understand. It's not age, it's not precondition - Some 90 year olds are making a recovery (albeit a difficult one), and some 70 year olds are getting the sniffles. Meanwhile, a 25 year old gets it so severely he dies in his house alone. There's something we're /not getting/ yet about this thing, and that's what scares me.
... Look, I may not have gotten a very good night's sleep last night. I may be completely and utterly caught up in my own terror right now.
re: covid; stats; saying this mostly to reassure myself
@Phorm I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but I've talked you through these before: this has all been a perfect storm of your fears. Honestly, even if it feels like you're falling apart... you're maintaining and you're still here, and I'm very proud of you. This is certainly one of the most difficult periods of my life, and I can only imagine what it's been like for you. *hug*
re: covid; stats; saying this mostly to reassure myself
@zebratron2084
*Hugs back* Yeah, I'm holding it together somehow. Mostly through work, strange as that is. But that is my coping mechanism, to some extent.
But every time I talk to my family, and I realize just how vulnerable they are...
I don't think I'm going to make it through this without losing someone, or going myself. I've been waiting for it to hit since January.
I'm exhausted.