Posted on 04/19/2020 6:24:26 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
I don’t know why everyone is freaking out. The flu kills tens of thousands of people each year, and no one is shutting down borders because of that.
Sound familiar?
It’s a common refrain from the past few weeks as the novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, made its way across borders from Wuhan, China. It’s something I (now shamefully) admit to saying, myself, when this all first started. And the confusion is understandable. So why is this one causing so much panic?
“We are familiar with coronaviruses because, for a long time now, strains of coronavirus have circulated in our community and caused respiratory illnesses such as ‘the common cold’. But COVID-19 is a different strain of coronavirus—one that we’ve not previously encountered,” says Dr. David Hirschwerk, an infectious disease specialist at Northwell Health. “It doesn’t happen often, but when we do discover a new or emerging infectious disease, we have to take it seriously until we better understand it.”
Here’s what we do know:
Though we won’t know the actual death rate until COVID-19 is contained and under control, we do know that it’s proving to have a higher death toll—or, in epidemiological terms, “case fatality rate.” According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the case fatality rate for the seasonal flu is approximately 0.1%. Thus far, the case fatality rate for COVID-19 has been cited anywhere between 1% and 4%—a death rate 10 to 40 times higher.
And though the elderly are the hardest hit by this virus, they aren’t the only ones at risk. One report in China found serious illness occurs in approximately 16% of cases. The average age of the patients studied—47.
“These numbers are preliminary, but there is a significant proportion of younger, healthy people who are receiving care in our intensive care units after developing illness from COVID-19,” says Hirschwerk. “While the elderly and immunocompromised are more vulnerable populations, there are still lots of young, otherwise healthy people who develop serious symptoms.”
Another concerning statistic: Each infected person spreads COVID-19 to an average of 2.2 other people. By comparison, those with the seasonal flu infect approximately 1.3. And since testing is still ramping up, we have no way of knowing how many people total are infected in the U.S.—especially since many show only mild symptoms and some are asymptomatic altogether.
“Even though we lose many people in the U.S. to the flu each year, we do have a vaccine for it and antiviral medication to treat with,” says Hirschwerk. “We don’t have any of that yet for COVID-19. And when a new infectious disease emerges in a community without preexisting immunity, there is a risk for more severe disease and for spread as a pandemic.”
Even though there are several strains of what we collectively call “the flu,” getting the annual flu vaccine helps us develop a type of herd immunity; without that, the case fatality rate would be much higher, as it currently is with this new virus. We also have prescription medications to treat it, while there is no antiviral drug (*as of time of print) for COVID-19.
The flu is also something that comes every season, which means it’s predictable in its patterns and symptoms. We know when it will occur, we know approximately how many people it will infect, and we know that it will die off in the warmer months. That gives us time to prepare. With this novel coronavirus, we’re learning all these lessons the hard way—trial and error—and we don’t have many of the answers yet.
In a time of “fake news” and rapid information-sharing through social media, we’re learning more than ever that words have power. Comparing the current novel coronavirus to the flu is irresponsible and dangerous because it creates distrust in the professionals who are advising us to take this seriously. It suggests that we shouldn’t be careful and don’t need to take precautions; it encourages us to ignore recommendations to be prepared for something much worse.
“Flu season has already peaked,” says Hirschwerk. "We’re seeing fewer and fewer cases as the weather gets warmer. So, at this point, flu-like symptoms are more likely to indicate infection with COVID-19. And given the higher infectivity and death rates, we need to take that seriously."
So if we have to acknowledge that this is serious—and we do—what does that mean? The recommendation across the board from our physicians and infectious disease experts has been not to panic, but to follow CDC guidelines: Wash your hands for a minimum of 20 seconds, avoid unnecessary trips to the store and other public places, and maintain a 6-foot distance from others. Stay home if you feel sick. And, of course, contact your physician if you’re feeling significantly under the weather. Even if you’re young and healthy, these precautions could save your life—or someone else’s.
That being said, there should still have been many covid-19 deaths in Chinatown before herd immunity was reached.
Daily dose of fearporn. I’m so skeered. Hep me! Hep me! Ima gon’ die!!!
May I just say to Cristina Guarino:
BULL SH*T!!
It’s neither “highly contagious” nor particularly “deadly”.
That being said, there should still have been many covid-19 deaths in Chinatown before herd immunity was reached.
The only other explanation is that covid-19 is not as deadly as were are being led to believe.
You didn't hardly have any cases in San Francisco until 3 weeks ago.
Now you have 1137 cases and 0 recoveries.
Do you trust that number?
We had more than that at a neighboring county nursing home
I trust hs number I am in Ca. My county population 900,000 we have 7 deaths all in nursing homes 247 total cases!!!
Aren’t we all going to get it anyway? some sooner, some later
Living in Long Island, I truly believe I got it back in late February.
Just a few days of a sore throat, runny nose and a mild fever.
And for this, we are destroying our country.
There you go again Danny get over it stop the spreading of doom and gloom this is overblown comp,Evelyn overblown!!
And we will probably never know....
We can guess...and that is what many do...
You left out “%” after each of your numbers.......implying 10% and 36%.......
Or how things were reported/counted.
In the US, because there was a shortage of test kits early on and they didn’t want to use them on already deceased folks, they counted anyone “suspected” of having corona (and there are other illnesses that give you those symptoms). In the US, where those already with one leg in the grave that passed but tested positive were counted as a corona virus fatality, even though they most likely would have died anyhow and ~80% of those with this virus only have light/mild symptoms. Basically, in the US you have inflated numbers because of how “gubbermint” advised how things should be counted.
But... as with anything, now everyone gets to draw the conclusions they want. The leftist will claim that if we had socialized health care this wouldn’t have happened. Obama will chime in at some point for sure. The global warming, isolationist, survivalist... everyone will have their “version of the truth” and so called leaders will gladly stand out in front pretending to be their voice and propelling themselves upward.
“Thus far, the case fatality rate for COVID-19 has been cited anywhere between 1% and 4%—a death rate 10 to 40 times higher.”
This DOES NOT account for people who have gotten it but symptoms weren’t severe enough to cause them to seek a physician and get tested. I predict that the true death rate will be about the same as the flu.
and from the actual on the ground collected patient data, the figure is .1 to .36
+++++
At this point that is pure speculation based on estimates of the actual infected population size.
Counting bodies is pretty straightforward. Counting those that died who were hospitalized with the Coronavirus is more difficult but unless there is a massive, worldwide conspiracy to over-count deaths from the virus we have to believe the published data is at least close to accurate.
Counting the total infections in the population requires 330,000,000 tests over a short period of time. That has not been done. What has been done is to count those who went to the doctor and were tested, many of whom were admitted to a health facility for treatment.
So what we have measured for the infected population is less than 1,000,000. What we measure for a death rate is about 4%. Since we don’t really know how many people have been infected already we know the rate will be less than that. But nobody knows how much less. Nobody.
If the real death rate is .1% there must be 39 people infected for everyone that has been identified. That may turn out to be the case. I hope it is but there is no evidence that it will be that low.
Vaccines and a really effective treatment will be how we get to your number. Not there yet.
But we do know the ChiComs lie and are vastly under reporting their COVID-19 deaths.
It's also a straw man argument to argue that just because you equate it to the flu means you think it's exactly the same as flu's we are more familiar with.
Also, 'dangerous' and 'irresponsible' are not scientific words - but they ARE common lefty weasel words.
And NEVER will...
More contagious? My school kids were all sick over a three week period. The middle week was pretty much all of them except for one child whose family are antivaxers, I’m told. That’s pretty contagious. But most tested negative for the flu.
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