% of people

[thaegumathteth]

Ok this is probably a very stupid question but humour me .

I keep seeing figures that 80% of UK population could catch CV. A conservative number to catch it is apparently 20% according to an article I read today.

BUT in China or Italy nowhere NEAR that % have caught it. I know it's obviously not finished but still......

Anyone understand what I mean?

Those worst case scenario estimates are, I'm assuming, people who will catch it 'in due course', not people who will get it in the peak in the next few months. In every country, the virus will have a peak but also, possibly, a long tail. I guess how long that tail is depends how restrictive the measures put in place are. In China, they have been very restrictive, so hopefully prevented those higher percentages.

I must admit, I don't quite understand why, now that China is finishing its lockdown, why everyone won't just start catching it again. Maybe enough of the social distancing measures will remain in place. I think the aim is not to kill the virus altogether but to 'flatten the curve' of cases so health services in every country can cope with them.

Thanks for the reply

I know they want to flatten the curve so as not to overwhelm NHS it's just that 80% seems such a huge huge amount but yes maybe it's over a week euros of time

Even if 20% are out of work at one time that's still a huge number

It’s not over yet. There talking at the end figures.

In China they have introduced the extraordinary measures to slowdown the virus. The 80% figure would be of a whole population but you could have it all at the same time if no measures are introduced (it is very contagious) or spread in time helping health workers to deal with it. No measures higher death rate.

I think 80% refers to if you just "let it go" rather than try and contain it. Though if you do contain/delay it you could end up at 80% anyway eventually. There seems to be some scientific evidence that suggests it's unlikely to get worse than 80% which is why 80% is often quoted as a worst case scenario.

At 80% it would burn itself (there are no longer enough people uninflected for the virus to spread) out so it just cannot statistically reach more saturation than 80%. It’s the same thing with forest fires for example, destruction is never 100%.
It’s about as contagious as the common cold, no where near as contagious as measles or chicken pox.
Information is beautiful

A lot of people will be a symptomatic/have very very mild symptoms. It’s probably going to be around for at least a year. And so on. They don’t mean that 80% of the population will get it all at once and will be sufficiently sick for it to be picked up. They mean that over the course of the next year or two, worst case scenario, 80% of people would have picked it up at some point. 80% of the country won’t be sick all at once.

Thanks all I know they say 80% won't be sick all at once but they do say 20% may be and that still seems like a really high figure and much higher than what we are seeing elsewhere?