My two bits about the novel coronavirus from Wuhan

1) Please, won't someone pay attention to my hypothesis about hyaline cartilage damage being an important contributory element in the progression to pneumonia that is so often seen with upper respiratory infections, especially in elderly people who are already prone to cartilage deterioration? Running around hoping for impossible-to-get antivirals when the cartilage damage has already started setting in, as is apparently going on in China right now, appears to be exactly the wrong approach. The infected should protect their cartilage by lying flat and subsisting on a cartilage-protecting liquid diet while their body fights off the virus. They shouldn't be building hospitals or treating patients in back-to-back shifts. Per page 4 of this letter from an army doctor who treated Native Americans during the 1918 influenza epidemic, the people who survived were those who lay flat and stuck with a liquid diet, while those patients who kept shifting between vertical and horizontal positions and/or ate solid food tended to die. This is a hypothesis that deserves further investigation.

2) My prayers are with everyone dealing with this. Quarantines, isolation, fear, overwork, oppression, all of it.