According to Scientific American and other reliable publications, over the next 18 months, 80% of us will get infected with COVID-19. Out of the 80%, a further 80% will have only mild symptoms and approximately 20% will develop serious symptoms with 6% requiring hospitalization. Approximately 2-3% will die and 80% of the people who will die, will be over 65. Of the people who died from coronavirus in Italy, 99% had at least one pre-existing condition.
The latest numbers from China are 6% of the people who have been tested for the virus had a severe illness and 89% have recovered. If the virus does not kill us, our bodies will develop immunity. Why 18 months? According to the scientific community, it will potentially take 18 months to develop a vaccine or develop herd immunity under controlled conditions.
What the authorities are trying to do now is to flatten the curve so that the health system can handle the 20% of people who will catch it and develop serious symptoms. Flattening the curve is like stepping on a balloon, the amount of air in it remains the same but the shape changes. As an example, in a population of 10 million people (similar to Greece), 8 million will catch the virus, 6.4 million will have mild symptoms that can be handled at home and 1.6 million will need to be hospitalized.
Greece has 6 ICU beds per 100,000 people so that means 600 beds in all. It is simply not possible to hospitalize all of the 1.6 million people at once and so the reason for flattening the curve with measures such as social distancing and self-isolation. Luckily, as of March 28, only 66 patients are in intensive care, so the hospitals are still under control.
The most susceptible to the virus are people over the age of 65 (19% in Greece) and those with pre-existing conditions. Twenty percent of people in Greece live with hypertension (2 million). Others have diabetes (10%), or asthma (5%). People with diabetes, lung conditions, kidney or liver disease are also at risk. Some have several chronic conditions that make them especially susceptible to the virus. There is also some talk that people with blood type A are more likely to have a serious case of the virus and people with blood type O less likely. They are the ones to watch out for and protect. Perhaps they, the 20% of the most at risk are the ones to isolate and let the rest of the population go back to work, catch the virus and develop herd immunity? This is what the UK and US tried to do and failed due to too many people getting a serious case of the virus and the hospitals not being able to cope.
Given all of this, if you are young and healthy, your chances of having only mild symptoms and developing natural immunity are quite high. If you are old and healthy, the risk of getting pneumonia increases with your age regardless of your health, so good luck. And if you are old and unhealthy, watch out and self isolate.
Furthermore, stop smoking, exercise, eat healthy foods, drink lots of liquids, wash your hands, don't touch your face and be prepared at home with sufficient food and medicines to last two weeks or more in case you get sick. And for the next 18 months, be nice to everyone but from a distance.
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