How many people are currently infected with COVID-19? As near as I can tell, the official answer is about 4 million or so. If you double that to account for both asymptomatic cases and mild cases that never get reported, it's 8 million. Then add some more just because, and it seems like 10 million is probably close to the mark. That's 3% of the US population.
I don't have an axe to grind here. Honest. I'm just confused. If, say, 3% of your teachers or your flight attendants or your truck drivers are out sick, that's... not a big deal. I imagine that something like 3-5% of US workers are routinely out sick, especially during winter.
Obviously the percentage of COVID cases is higher in places like New York City, that have seen a big spike. And hospitals are a whole different story. Generally speaking, though, it seems like 3% is a plausible number and that doesn't track at all with reports on the ground about massive chaos due to the virus.
What am I getting wrong here? Am I overreacting to a few isolated news reports in specific places and specific industries? Is most of the country humming along fairly normally? I can't figure out what's really going on here.
Suppose you missed 3% of work days in a year. 60 hours. 7.5 work days. That's a lot more work than I've ever missed due to being sick.
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/4-point-2-million-workers-have-illness-related-work-absences-in-january-2018.htm?view_full
suggests that over the course of a month, up to 2.5% of the labor force misses work. So you're kind of suggesting that missing work due to being sick is about 10 times higher than normal. (Assuming a person typically misses 3 days of work when they get the flu.)
Meanwhile, the jobs affected may have a different distribution than normal. Those of us in tech who have been working from home may be less likely to be sick than usual.