This is the best thing I’ve read on the subject so far. The main point is that, as the virus is highly contagious but has a low fatality rate, it’s probably going to become part of our lives for the foreseeable future. It’s going to spread because most people who get it will be ok, and many people walk around displaying zero symptoms at all.
Coronaviruses are similar to influenza viruses in that they are both single strands of RNA. Four coronaviruses commonly infect humans, causing colds. These are believed to have evolved in humans to maximize their own spread—which means sickening, but not killing, people. By contrast, the two prior novel coronavirus outbreaks—SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome, named for where the first outbreak occurred)—were picked up from animals, as was H5N1. These diseases were highly fatal to humans. If there were mild or asymptomatic cases, they were extremely few. Had there been more of them, the disease would have spread widely. Ultimately, SARS and MERS each killed fewer than 1,000 people.
Lipsitch predicts that, within the coming year, some 40 to 70 percent of people around the world will be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19. But, he clarifies emphatically , this does not mean that all will have severe illnesses. “It’s likely that many will have mild disease, or may be asymptomatic,” he said. As with influenza, which is often life-threatening to people with chronic health conditions and of older age, most cases pass without medical care. (Overall, around 14 percent of people with influenza have no symptoms.)
you can look at the WHO data dashboard here which seems to be the most reliable and regularly updated source of information for CONFIRMED data.
the vast majority of people contract a coronavirus at least once a year but because they call it the flu or a common cold - they don’t let it bother them.
80+ years old - 14.8%
70-79 years old - 8.0%
60-69 years old - 3.6%
50-59 years old - 1.3%
40-49 years old - 0.4%
30-39 years old - 0.2%
20-29 years old - 0.2%
10-19 years old - 0.2%
Those are pretty high numbers for 60+, and something is happening in Italy as the mortality rate is higher there than elsewhere.
(There are 2 billion people worldwide over the age of 60. A global spread and 3.6% mortality would mean upwards of 72,000,000 deaths - and that’s ignoring the higher mortality rate of more elderly age groups)
it’s pretty much the same mortality model as any other respiratory virus and the first vaccine candidates have already been produced by a university team in Australia. being old is not an automatic death sentence for any coronavirus infection - there’s just a higher percentage of people in that age group unable to combat the symptoms due to frailty or poor general health.
its not an insignificant out break for sure but its not the worst ever either - there has never been a flu pandemic in history that follows this type of infection and mortality model that has resulted in more than 2 million global deaths. the worst flu pandemic was at the end of the first world war but that was a particularly anomalous and virulent strain that did not target the elderly or people with poor immune defences - actually the opposite - and resulted in huge losses estimated broadly at between 20-50 million.
Studies found that the Spanish flu was no more aggressive than previous strains but post war malnourishment, overcrowded medical camps and hospitals and poor hygiene promoted bacterial superinfection that killed most of the victims,
You also have to factor in that mortality rates during the lifetime of a pandemic do not follow a linear rate - they grow, peak and trail off.
Not because i’m interested in panic buying but i’m sure some fools will. And so the thought crossed my mind that ‘would a large of Huel sitting in the cupboards be a good thing?’ but then I had an immediate second thought of ‘where is it bagged/sourced?’.
Assuming any food factory has strict safety standards then it must be safe. But is it?
Hmm. 20 days later I guess I am not alone in thinking that now is a very good time to get some Huel in stock, which I have just done by ordering extra packs. When all my local supermarkets look like they have been ram raided by idiots buying up every tin of beans and every packet of pasta in sight. I live on my own and it feels good that should I have to self isolate at some point in the near future I will at least have a decent meal to hand. In fact I was pleasantly surprised to see Huel still in stock. It might have sounded like overkill when this topic was first posted. Now it seems prudent.
I agree with you. I’ve also stocked up with eight bags of Huel and crates of water. The water might not be needed but it’s there just in case. I’m also thinking about buying more Huel, just in case there is a shortage. Huel has a year long shelf-life so it’s not a case of having stock you might never use. There is another point too, the more bags you buy, the bigger the discount.
told us what? you asked if people will stock up on more Huel because of the (existing) crisis and if Huel were going to invest more into advertising / pointing out Huel benefits. Most people agreed it was inappropriate to take financial advantage of the situation by feeding into peoples fears (or at least being perceived to be doing that).
Largely ignoring the ethical side of things – the problem is that most businesses forecast according to current user base and growth mostly on “business as usual”. If Huel’s user base suddenly drastically expanded it would be likely that compounded with supply chain issues that are likely to happen anyway they’d have difficulties delivering the products ordered and a lot of customers would be very unhappy. Same goes for managing cust. service tickets jumping and that Huel isn’t for everyone’s taste, so a massive campaign may well backfire for them. Better to talk about it post-craze when the economy gets back to some level of normalcy.
It would be reassuring if people ever learnt from history or their behaviour. Epidemics and pandemics are pretty regular events – certainly there have been many in our lifetime – but we never seem to heed the lessons they teach us.
There is often little rhyme or reason to people’s behaviour and even less so how that behaviour is rationalised. One of the few constants appears to be how the media feeds their fears.
Panic buying in particular is one of those constants I haven’t lived in the UK for more than 15 years but I remember even if a supermarket was due to be closed for as a little as a day (like for a holiday) people would buy disproportionately huge amounts of produce that they did not need – totally ignoring the fact the store would be open again in 24 hours. I suspect little has changed in that regard.
As you said – it just compounds problems. I would have thought that if Huel customers were nervous about food security, the best thing they could do would be to order extra stock from the outlet which is already out of production and needs using rather than risk squeezing supplies of new stock. There is no real food panic buying here, but I needed extra supplies as I am not going out much post surgery, so ordered a couple of month’s worth from the Outlet rather than v3.
