[Cal-to-NH]

A friend of mine (in their 40s) from San Francisco got it directly from China. He has to go to China for one week every Month and he brought it home with him back in February. His Wife and two kids got it (from him) before he showed symptoms. They all recovered and are disease-negative, antibody positive. The kids have no lingering effects but he and his wife are still a bit debilitated, unable to sleep, and unable to walk even a block without shortness of breath. They are having problems getting Pulmonary specialists to see them right now because they are still overworked trying to help people who are critical with the active disease. They are very frustrated and concerned that this might be a permanent issue. I think he needs to give it more time, but I guess that recovery can take a while for some folks...

As testing expands they are finding that 20% - 30% of the US population is testing positive, which as others have pointed out means that some folks may experience it as a light common cold. Others are dead in 5 days. This one is definitely weird.

The fact that you can shed for as long as ten days before you know you're sick, and the NYU report showing that it lingers as an Upper Respiratory infection - unlike Influenza and other Lower-Respiratory infections - means that the spread is rapid through the air. Talking, singing, sneezing, coughing are all risks for spread.

They have been predicting pandemics for decades. Even I started to ignore the warnings thinking it would never happen. Everyone thought it would be a paramyxovirus, but it turned out to be another Coronavirus. Remember two things. (1) we add 1 Billion people to the earth every 13 years now. and (2) Travel is cheap and prevalent. Between those two things we will as a species be getting new viruses, and unfortunately if they have the right characteristics they will spread pretty quickly. Yes, Ebola is crazy-fatal, but you acquire it from someone and show symptoms in 24 hours, which limits it's spread if you take any actions against it. An upper-respiratory infection that you can spread for 10 days without knowing you have it - even if lower mortality - will kill Millions if unchecked.

There will be more pandemics. There is no doubt. But nobody knows when....