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Originally Posted by redneck
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AFAIK the first confirmed case was retroactively found to be an onset of illness on Nov 17 (seafood market pneumonia patients were discovered December 30th ish, WHO was told on Dec 31st, identified as a new virus Jan 7th), but that person is not believed to be patient zero, so the existence of patient zero in late October is definitely possible. That's only about one or two incubation periods from Nov 17th, so it makes sense.
Adjusted for comorbidities, you can expect around 500-1000 infections per death, then adjust the death numbers up a little to account for uncounted deaths due to lack of testing, then project likely deaths in new hotspots like SF/NYC, you get around 1 million and slowly growing, but probably not that many more.
The scary thing is if it took 2.5 entire months to even find, what if it's a virus with very severe long term effects like HIV? Living past the age of 70 could become a very unsure proposition if a virus that everyone has like HPV, EBV, influenza easily kills you as you're older.
Thinking about that makes me realize maybe I should go buy more sports cars while I'm still alive
