Posted on 03/10/2020 6:41:04 AM PDT by sickoflibs
With Coronavirus being the new kid on the block and getting all the media attention — thanks in small part to the fact that it’s affecting the economy, giving them another anti-Trump narrative to play with — it’s gone overlooked that right here at home, the influenza virus has been wreaking havoc all on its own.
According to the Daily Wire, CDC reports are showing an unusually high number of deaths thanks to the flu. A number that ranges to around 20,000 people:
According to the most recent report from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), among the roughly 34 million people who have suffered from the flu this season, 20,000 have died. Influenza A viruses were the most commonly reported, as opposed to the usual predominance of Influenza B. 136 deaths of children have been reported; the CDC noted, “rates among school aged children and young adults are higher at this time than in recent seasons and rates among children 0-4 years old are now the highest CDC has on record at this point in the season, surpassing rates reported during the second wave of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic.
The CDC reported that this season, the predominant flu virus is influenza A (H1N1).
This proves that we have a serious problem with a virus, but on a list of worries, the Coronavirus is not necessarily at the top. Right here at home, the influenza virus is making a mark, but not getting the same attention from the media due to its commonality.
This isn’t to say that the Coronavirus shouldn’t be a concern, but precautions should be made against influenza now, not just Covid. Practice good hygiene and avoid big crowds until the flu season is over. Trust me, I already got influenza A myself and I don’t recommend it to anyone
Panic is spreading thanks to the hyping of the dems and their media puppetmasters. The dems have weaponized the virus in their attempt to rid the country of the orange man. It is truly pathetic that they are openly colluding with a Chinese virus and hoping for widespread infection and death here in this country.
Yeah, CV is all a big plot against Trump. The conspiracy is worldwide, even in Italy!
But I missed where the flu is doing this:
Italian hospitals are in meltdown. If you are over 65, or at any age if you have any co-morbid condition (diabetes, heart cond. etc), you are put outside the treatment triage. There simply are not enough staff or ICU beds or lung machines for all. You will not get into ICU, no oxygen intubation, you will just die. This is why Italy’s death rate is so high.
I think the USA will resemble Italy, not S. Korea or Taiwan, where they got way out in front of CV with massive early testing programs, early contract tracing, quarantine and social isolation EARLY.
In the USA, we missed those critical weeks and months of preparation. (Too much “it’s just the flu” BS happy talk.)
/ / / /
(From the beginning of the thread reader, link to it all is below.)
/ / / / /
From a well respected friend and intensivist/A&E consultant who is currently in northern Italy:
1/ ‘I feel the pressure to give you a quick personal update about what is happening in Italy, and also give some quick direct advice about what you should do.
2/ First, Lumbardy is the most developed region in Italy and it has a extraordinary good healthcare, I have worked in Italy, UK and Aus and don’t make the mistake to think that what is happening is happening in a 3rd world country.
3/ The current situation is difficult to imagine and numbers do not explain things at all. Our hospitals are overwhelmed by Covid-19, they are running 200% capacity
4/ We’ve stopped all routine, all ORs have been converted to ITUs and they are now diverting or not treating all other emergencies like trauma or strokes. There are hundreds of pts with severe resp failure and many of them do not have access to anything above a reservoir mask.
5/ Patients above 65 or younger with comorbidities are not even assessed by ITU, I am not saying not tubed, I’m saying not assessed and no ITU staff attends when they arrest. Staff are working as much as they can but they are starting to get sick and are emotionally overwhelmed.
6/ My friends call me in tears because they see people dying in front of them and they con only offer some oxygen. Ortho and pathologists are being given a leaflet and sent to see patients on NIV. PLEASE STOP, READ THIS AGAIN AND THINK.
[All of the report from an Italian physician at the thread reader link below]
PART ONE
PART TWO
True dat.
Trump has done a great job of striking a balance of showing the due concern over this potential plague and not scaring the herd into running off an economic cliff.
Yes, if ignored, this situation could be much worse, as it is in China and Italy, but he is doing all that can be done, thinking, these actions should be enough to get us through the ‘spread’ stage.
Shame on those using this virus to monger fear and panic.
I bet you are huddled in a safe space in your mother’s basement. I try to read different FR threads to get factual information and all I see is you posting the same crap over and over. I counter your hysteria with the multiple friends whom I have in China who say the virus has passed.
I still think this is something very serious, but...
Thoughts while in the shower this morning:
1. When oil prices plummet, does that mean oil is cheap, or the petro-dollar value is high?
2. Isn’t mandatory quarantine = to martial law?
3. Won’t people fearful of infection be less hesitant to unite to resist a coup of Trump?
4. Why does Russia not seem to be infected too much?
Influenza can claim a lot of lives because both the elderly and children under 15 are particularly vulnerable.
Yes, the influenza is a killer. CDC numbers show that in the last twenty years, it has been more deadly than usual, causing over 80,000 deaths in some years.
The concern over Covid-19 is real, though. Right now, there is not sustained human to human transmission. It has, however, other characteristics we associate with a pandemic virus:
1) There is no preexisting immunity among the population, hence, a lot of people are susceptible to getting sick if exposed.
2) It is a respiratory virus, a group of viruses that typically transmit readily between people.
3) Its death rate is low enough to not impede transmission, while being high enough to cause millions of deaths should it reach the stage of sustained human to human transmission.
The point at which human to human transmission becomes sustained is drawing closer. This virus has the real potential to become pandemic.
Influenza is not now a pandemic. However, the pandemic that killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide between 1917 and 1919 was an influenza, an H1N1 strain that is related to strains still in circulation. History tells us that the 1917-1919 influenza swept around the world in waves, and that the first wave was not much different in terms of illness and mortality than “ordinary” circulating influenzas of the time. However, the second and third waves caused millions of deaths, including 675,000 in the US.
I am a little amused/puzzled right now by the responses to this virus. When Ebola hit Africa in 2015, there was a lot of panic. Yet Ebola is not a pandemic capable virus, being a bloodborne pathogen with a high enough mortality rate to seriously impede transmission. Now here is this coronavirus virus, related to the common cold, which has several hallmarks of pandemic causing organisms, and I see people shrugging it off because flu kills more people. That’s like looking at a dam built of cement that is starting to crumble, which is developing large cracks and shrugging off any concern because car accidents kill more people than the dam ever has. A wise person would realize that the dam needs repairs now, or the flood when it fails is going to kill a lot more people than the car accidents.
Do not dismiss the potential danger of this virus. Take precautions. Avoid touching your face, wash or sanitize your hands frequently, and stay 6 feet away from people. If Covid-19 is in your area, I would add to wipe down purchases from the store with disinfectant, and even to rinse produce in a 1% bleach solution (1 tsp bleach for 2 cups water) and rinse with water prior to consuming. That is because the virus can survive on surfaces for a while (hours, I think), and you don’t know who might have touched it before you.
If you are a practicing germophobe, you have the best chance of avoiding infection with any coronavirus, not just Covid-19. I rarely get colds because I’m always cognizant of potential infection sources.
Media to ignore since they can’t somehow tie it to being Trump’s fault.
About 80% of novel coronavirus cases are mild, according to China's most comprehensive report about the outbreak published so far.
Many patients experience only a fever or dry cough, while some show no symptoms at all.
The new numbers, along with the fact that 322 out of 621 confirmed cases on a quarantined cruise ship involved people who showed no symptoms, suggest that many mild cases of the new coronavirus are going unreported.
Most cases of the Spanish influenza of 1917-1919 were mild, too. Yet it killed 50 million people.
Most pandemics are not caused by organisms that have extremely high death rates. Rather, they are highly contagious and have high enough death rates that there would be hundreds of thousands or millions of deaths if tens of millions of people were to fall ill.
To put it into perspective: there are more than 3 million cases of influenza in the US every year. This season, about 12,000 people have died (this season is actually mild). Imagine if there were 3 million Covid-19 cases: that would equate to 102,000 deaths at the current mortality rate of 3.4%. Given that the population has not been exposed to this particular virus, no one has immunity and the number of cases could be in the tens or even hundreds of millions range. That 20% of non-mild cases is more than enough to completely overwhelm the health-care system.
Fake mortality rate because we have no idea of what the base # of people who had it is, but we know it is more than those who we know got it from testing.
If 10X as many people have had it than the estimate used to compute the 3.4% (undetected because little or no symptoms) then we are back to the flu rates.
We only hear two numbers thrown about : those who tested positive and those who died, we don't get statistics on those who didnt die. What happened to them?
That is ridiculous. the Dems did not weaponize this virus to hurt orange man, the Dems are not competent enough to do such a thing.
You obviously have no understanding of logarithmic growth. Go to Italy and see what’s happening to their hospital systems. If they are overwhelmed as in China, Iran, the mortality rates will be much more.
We are not in Italy or China or Korea. We are a country of over 300 MILLION people and have about 200 cases and 19 deaths. Meanwhile, ordinary flu has killed 19,000 people here. I recall that there was a more severe than usual flu outbreak here during the 0bama administration and the media puppetmasters barely mentioned it.
We go thru this every few years, SARS, Ebola, Bird Flu, MERS. All these come and go, and the ordinary flu continues killing tens of thousands as it always has.
Not surprising. Difference however is that the flu has run its course since fall last year. This virus, which we do not have immunity to is just getting started
I disagree with the assertion of many that this is a ploy to damage POTUS. The Presidents actions and tweets at this point about the virus and markets are self defeating however.
But the Flu is a known, we are still learning about this. It’s the fear of the unknown.
An unknown strain of influenza-A nearly killed me two months ago. It was very fast. In 12 hours it went from fatigue and a dry cough to passing out, extreme weakness and very difficult breathing. I called 911 and got ambulanced-out. In the hospital they said it was attacking my lungs, heart and other organs. My lungs had pneumonia and my heart had >2,000x the level of a stress indicating chemical. X-rays showed the heart was swollen -MI.
If I didn’t get into the hospital and they didn’t have the 8 IV drips they used over 6 days to control it I’d have died for sure.
Twelve hours.
Okay, you do not seem to understand epidemiology. The case fatality rate (CFR) is, by definition, the death rate determined from the total number of diagnosed cases which have resolved either by death or by recovery. In other words, the number of mild or asymptomatic cases is not relevant. Maybe ten million people get the flu, but three million are diagnosed. The CFR is based on those known cases and nothing else.
With the novel coronavirus, the number of diagnosed cases might become very high, because there is no immunity to it in the population. This makes the entire population susceptible to catching it. This means that cases could number into tens or hundreds of millions just in the US. This is in contrast to the flu, where the majority of people have immunity, and only a small percentage of the population is susceptible to getting it. The lack of population immunity is one of the reasons public health officials are so concerned about Covid-19.
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