Experts give legislators dire warning on virus

Medical experts issued a grim warning to state legislators in Juneau that the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic will grow exponentially with catastrophic consequences to health and the nation’s economy unless governments act quickly to impose “social distancing” to slow the spread of the virus.

At the present growth rate, the number of infected persons is doubling every seven to 10 days, said Dr. Nirav Shah, professor at Stanford Medical Center and Tomas Pueyo, a mathematician and modeler, and COO at Course Hero, a California technology company.

In a briefing to the House State Affairs committee Tuesday Pueyo said his calculations show that if infection growth rates are not slowed as many as 100 million Americans will catch the virus.

Based on data from China and now Italy, Pueyo said five percent of will require hospitalization and one to two percent will need beds in Intensive Care Units equipped with ventilators.

At that rate of growth the nation’s health care system could be stressed to the point of collapse, he warned. The death rate could reach 500,000.

However, strictly enforced and quick action to impose social distancing, including closing of public facilities where people mix and the cancellation of events, will slow the growth of infection and eventually flatten it. That’s based on data from China, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore, Pueyo told the legislators. Those are nations where outbreaks now appear to be under control.

Italy is the latest “hot zone” of infection but actions by the government to close restaurants, bars and events are expected to show results within a week or two, Pueyo said. France has now taken similar measures as well as some U.S. cities including New York City and in Alaska, Anchorage.

Pueyo said evidence is showing that every person affected with the virus, typically before any symptoms appear, infect 2.5 other people. The goal of imposition of strict measures like social distancing should be to slow that to zero, which will stop of growth of infections.

There will be large economic costs but once the growth is stopped the social distancing measures can be eased and even if infections rise again slightly, such as to one other person affected for each person getting the virus, the economic pain will be somewhat lessened and valuable time is gained to build more health care infrastructure including testing kits, more ventilators and more intensive care beds in hospitals.

This is the playbook developed in China after a rough start in controlling the virus but the strategy appears to be working there are elsewhere.

Dr. Shah told legislators that there appear to be zero deaths among young children with the virus but for people 85 and older the death rate is 15 percent.

“Alaska could be lucky. Your population density is small, and you don’t share borders and mobility of people with states of high rates of infection. You might have just a few dozen cases and if you institute controls the transmission rate might be much lower,” than in the U.S. as a whole, he said.

“That means you can gain some time.”

Despite that, Rep. Zack Fields, D-Anch., said Alaska is woefully lacking in health care infrastructure. “We have only two hospital beds per 1,000 people. That’s on the low end for the U.S.,” he said.

Be wary of myths and rumors such as one that the virus cannot survive in warmer temperatures, Shah warned. There is some evidence that the rate of infection slows at higher temperatures, but it still spreads, as evidenced by the spread of COVID-19 in India and Africa, places with warm climates, he said.