We urgently need “rapid tests” — offering results in minutes — and before long we will also desperately need tests to determine who has had the virus and now has immunity. We are much better off if 100 million Americans contract the coronavirus over 18 months rather than over 18 weeks, and this also gives scientists the chance to test treatments and develop vaccines, and to see if warmer weather helps. Epidemiological models suggest that by late April we could have millions of Americans infected, and the danger is that people with other ailments die for want of care in the chaos. Several epidemiologists suggest that we could easily see 100 million infections of the new coronavirus in the United States, of which 5 or 10 percent might require hospitalization and 1 percent might need a ventilator. That could mean almost one million people needing ventilators just for Covid-19, though not all at the same time, yet we have only about 72,000 full ventilators in the United States.

Source: New York Times March 12, 2020 00:11 UTC