The Wuhan Fractal

Fractal geometry shows repeating patterns as you drill down in perspective. The same pattern exists at a universe level as exists at a microscopic level. The video below describes such an example

I was watching a video from a man who is quarantined in Italy discussing life in Italy and he put up a graph

I’m calling this the Wuhan Fractral. This is a graph of the virus embedding itself into the population of Wuhan. Wuhan is in red. Green is Italy. It’s the same graph. The same graph will occur in Spain, France, the US etc. The same graph will occur in London, NYC, Toronto. The same graph will occur in TN, FL, and CA. The same graph will occur because we are all human and the virus is the virus.

Presently the only way to immunity is through infection, so the Wuhan Fractal will hold till that’s no longer true. There is a notion age some how provides immunity. It does not. The virus has a bimodal course which I’ll call severe and mild. The expression of the modes seem to be age dependent so 20 year olds have a 0.2% death rate and 85 year olds have a 15% death rate (numbers I read not sure of accuracy). So the bimodal “80% mild 20% severe” is actually also stratified by age. It turns out there is also morbidity with the disease. The Hong Kong experience is 20 – 30% of virus survivors suffer pulmonary disability severe enough that a brisk walk causes complete breathlessness. If the old die, that means a greater percent of the remaining young will suffer respiratory disability. I don’t know this to be the case, but that’s what the fractal sets suggests. I can’t even begin to predict what this means economically except I don’t think iron workers who can’t breath are going to stay iron workers. Imagine a world of respiratory cripples and what that does to productivity.

The old get hit harder with death. What if 10% of senior management in our corporations die? What’s the likelihood of corporate survival, much less accelerating corporate profitability? Consider the Wuhan Fractal as you’re buying the dip. This thing is going to take 2 years to play out before we have base line from which to start growing again. I expect the growth won’t be gangbusters.

If you believe Wuhan numbers the death rate was 4.4%

New cases have dramatically tailed off so even though the numbers are dynamic they are about right. Wuhan is about 2-3 months ahead of us in terms of growth.

This doesn’t take into account a second wave, if there is one.

My best advice is don’t get the virus before you’re vaccinated. That kind of puts a time frame on the problem and how to think about planning. The media jokes and drool’s about this being Trump’s Katrina. This is humanity’s Katrina. Katrina was a tragedy, but also represents a fractal set. Imagine that fractal blown up to world wide scale.

2 Replies to “The Wuhan Fractal”

  1. Gasem,

    You are one of the most sensible US based physicians I have come across regarding this Wuhan virus and its potential effects.

    I have been keeping an eye on this Wuhan virus in the news since mid January this year before they locked down Wuhan city.

    Here are more Wuhan virus news to keep you entertained.

    Thanks for all you are doing.

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