Nobel laureate predicts quick coronavirus recovery: ‘We’re going to be fine’

Nobel laureate and Stanford biophysicist Michael Levitt predicts a quick coronavirus recovery. Levitt began analyzing the number of SARS-CoV-2 cases worldwide in January. Long before many health experts had predicted, Levitt correctly calculated that China would get through the worst of its COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.

He foresees a similar outcome in the United States and the rest of the world.

Joe Mozingo for The Los Angeles Times:

While many epidemiologists are warning of months, or even years, of massive social disruption and millions of deaths, Levitt says the data simply don’t support such a dire scenario — especially in areas where reasonable social distancing measures are in place.

He analyzed 78 countries with more than 50 reported cases of COVID-19 every day and sees “signs of recovery.” He’s not looking at cumulative cases, but the number of new cases every day — and the percentage growth in that number from one day to the next…

[Levitt] blames the media for causing unnecessary panic by focusing on the relentless increase in the cumulative number of cases and spotlighting celebrities who contract the virus. By contrast, the flu has sickened 36 million Americans since September and killed an estimated 22,000, according to the CDC, but those deaths are largely unreported.

He fears the public health measures that have shut down large swaths of the economy could cause their own health catastrophe, as lost jobs lead to poverty and hopelessness. Time and again, researchers have seen that suicide rates go up when the economy spirals down. “The real situation is not as nearly as terrible as they make it out to be,” he said…

“What we need is to control the panic,” he said. In the grand scheme, “we’re going to be fine.”

MacDailyNews Take: A quick coronavirus recovery would be very welcome indeed!

That said, thank God this didn’t happen in late 1996/early 1997 or we’d all be stuck with bad upside-down and backwards Mac wannabes and flip phones today.

MacDailyNews Note: More info on the Prevention & Treatment of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) via the U.S. CDC is here. Track the Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) here.