Americans should prepare for coronavirus spread in U.S., CDC says

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

58. Penicillin will only matter with illnesses that are caused by bacteria. Not viruses.

I am not certain if the pneumonia that's such a common side-effect of influenza, especially in older people, is in that case bacterial or viral. I honestly don't know.

Herd immunity is certainly a factor. But so are public health measures like hand washing. In 1918, and for several decades thereafter, running water was not so common in houses or apartments, even in first world countries. That alone meant a lot of people weren't washing their hands regularly. And I suppose the desperately poor might not have afforded soap, even if they had running water. I've been fairly poor at times in my life, where we did without certain things (I recall shampoo for my hair being in short supply at one point) and that a free meal actually made a difference in my budget. So I do understand poverty, and I'm grateful that my times of relative poverty never lasted very long.

From what we seem to know about the Chinese meat markets, I think it's fair to say that not only are they largely unregulated, but are probably hideously unsanitary. I'm also going to go out on a limb here and suggest that maybe regular hand-washing isn't what it ought to be in that country. As for the "hospitals" that got set up very quickly, from what I understand they were simply places to warehouse sick people, and it's not obvious to the casual observer that much real medical care was taking place. Hence the relatively high death rate in China. Plus smoking. China has a very high smoking rate and surprise, surprise, what seems to kill with this corona virus is Acute Respiratory Failure Syndrome. And smokers (and those who live with them) are going to be far more susceptible.