ATLANTA — As COVID-19 continues to spread, the number of infections adding up still generally constitute a very small percentage of the overall population.
That may make it seem like the overall outbreak isn't as serious as it's made to be, but the smallness of the percentage can be misleading in a few ways.
Right now, about 1.5% of the U.S. population has tested positive for COVID. Here in Georgia, that number is about 2%.
That may seem insignificant and small, but it can be a big problem.
Here's why: hospital capacity. We have about 1.4 million hospital beds nationwide. In Georgia, that number is currently 21,463 (source: GEMA daily report).
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The issue is simple - if too many people get the virus at once, we will not be able to care for them.
Right now, the federal Department of Health and Human Services estimates Georgia is at about 79% of its hospital capacity. (Here's a way to track that.)
If the infection rate rises just slightly - say, by about another 1,000 positive cases a day in Georgia - we will not be able to care for all the people who need medical attention.
New York City, for instance, only had 5% of the population test positive, and it severely overwhelmed the health care system of the entire state for eight weeks.
The number of people who die will also rise rapidly.
One popular misleading comparison of the COVID-19 pandemic is to car accidents. In 2018, Georgia had 1,504 deadly car accidents. Already this year, we've had 4,117 COVID deaths. The virus has killed 2.7 times the number of people as car accidents.
There's also a lot of discussion about letting the virus just run through the population, since so many people do recover, to reach herd immunity.
To achieve herd immunity, the 2% number we have in Georgia right now would need to be close to 60-70% of the population. The Mayo Clinic has a great explainer of how that work.
But we're no where near that yet, and likely won't be for some time.
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