Some thoughts on how screwed we are.

[mister_coffee]

For those who argue that the low fatality rate is no big deal, consider:

From https://twitter.com/pookleblinky/status ... 0938764289 :

We don't remember polio nowadays, only longpolio.

In 29.5%, it presents as diarrhea, GI distress. Only 0.5% of cases present with neurological symptoms. For the vast vast majority of people who got a disease which left hundreds of thousands disabled for the rest of their lives, polio was a few days of having the shits. If that.

There is absolutely no way the US would recognize polio as a problem nowadays, or do anything at all useful to try to stop it.

Or even more ominously, from https://www.thecentersquare.com/indiana ... 25e2c.html :

...
The head of Indianapolis-based insurance company OneAmerica said the death rate is up a stunning 40% from pre-pandemic levels among working-age people.

“We are seeing, right now, the highest death rates we have seen in the history of this business – not just at OneAmerica,” the company’s CEO Scott Davison said during an online news conference this week. “The data is consistent across every player in that business.”
...
Davison said the increase in deaths represents “huge, huge numbers,” and that’s it’s not elderly people who are dying, but “primarily working-age people 18 to 64” who are the employees of companies that have group life insurance plans through OneAmerica.

“And what we saw just in third quarter, we’re seeing it continue into fourth quarter, is that death rates are up 40% over what they were pre-pandemic,” he said.

“Just to give you an idea of how bad that is, a three-sigma or a one-in-200-year catastrophe would be 10% increase over pre-pandemic,” he said. “So 40% is just unheard of.”
...