The primary way this virus kills is via critical cases that need about 3-5 weeks of intensive care unit to recover.
That means once any factor in the list of resources making up your limited ICU capacity is exhausted, most people going critical (10-20% of cases) are basically dead.
ICU capacity is a formula limited by various factors:
People (Doctors, Nurses,support staff being awake, healthy, protected), Beds and Room, Consumables and Drugs, etc.
Global capacity of consumables for this situation is under severe crunch. There are not enough masks. There is not enough PPE. We even have some supply issues on IPA by now in several regions due to hyper connected commerce, hoarding, insufficient stockpiles.
Singapore actually put out the math that their stockpile was signidicantly depleted due to taking a gamble by giving every household 4 masks to stop the initial panic.
Again.... health care capacity is the single most constraining factor on this viruses mortality rate. For most people, even a properly worn mask during a normal day will not avert any kind of infection because they are not fully PPEd (I sneeze on you, infection will happen through ocular surface regardless of mask) and because the chance actually getting into a situation the mask is useful is remote compared to a doctor or nurse.
So both at scale and from an individual perspective - not buying and depleting the mask stock and ensuring adequate supply for healthcare is the absolute best way to optimise for survival.
That means once any factor in the list of resources making up your limited ICU capacity is exhausted, most people going critical (10-20% of cases) are basically dead.
ICU capacity is a formula limited by various factors:
People (Doctors, Nurses,support staff being awake, healthy, protected), Beds and Room, Consumables and Drugs, etc.
Global capacity of consumables for this situation is under severe crunch. There are not enough masks. There is not enough PPE. We even have some supply issues on IPA by now in several regions due to hyper connected commerce, hoarding, insufficient stockpiles.
Singapore actually put out the math that their stockpile was signidicantly depleted due to taking a gamble by giving every household 4 masks to stop the initial panic.
Again.... health care capacity is the single most constraining factor on this viruses mortality rate. For most people, even a properly worn mask during a normal day will not avert any kind of infection because they are not fully PPEd (I sneeze on you, infection will happen through ocular surface regardless of mask) and because the chance actually getting into a situation the mask is useful is remote compared to a doctor or nurse.
So both at scale and from an individual perspective - not buying and depleting the mask stock and ensuring adequate supply for healthcare is the absolute best way to optimise for survival.