[BarbC2016]

It always bothers me how people use numbers. Having worked with stats and risk analysis for many years when I hear numbers out of context it really bothers me. There are two numbers here that are important. Percent of total population and profile of people who died. Yes, we have surpassed Italy in the total number of cases, but Italy has ~ 61 million people, we have as of the end of January almost 330 million people. So to effectively match Italy's death rate we would have 5 X the number of deaths. Also, it is known that the disproportionate number of deaths is in people over 80 with three or more underlying conditions, followed by people over 65, also with one or more underlying conditions. A risk based analysis says - target the "hot spots" and prioritize your approach with the resources you have available. What is going on now tells me that the available, or soon to be available resources, need to be sent to the critical areas as quickly as possible (as is the current plan), the guidelines for slowing the spread need to be followed and you and I must assess our personal risk and do what we need to do to be safe. It also says we should not cripple our children's future by destroying jobs and panicking the entire population. It is interesting to note that the target population in the 1918 flu were young people. It has been suspected that older people had had a weaker version of the flu at some point previously and developed an immunity, which is why they were not so heavily affected. Stay safe.