The flu and the new coronavirus have similar symptoms, but the Coronavirus is far deadlier — here's how the 2 compare

Business Insider ^ | 03/04/2020 | Holly Secon

[SeekAndFind]

The coronavirus outbreak came in the middle of flu season in the Northern Hemisphere.

Many people have highlighted the overlapping symptoms of the flu and COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Even President Donald Trump asked pharmaceutical execs if the flu vaccine could be used to stop the coronavirus.

But Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization, warned against taking such comparisons too far.

"This virus is not SARS, it's not MERS, and it's not influenza," Ghebreyesus said in a press conference on Tuesday. "It is a unique virus with unique characteristics."

The most crucial difference between the flu and the coronavirus is that the latter has been far deadlier. Whereas about 0.1% of people who get the flu die, the coronavirus' death rate is now at about 3.4%, based on the current numbers of cases and deaths.

The fatality rate of the novel coronavirus is still evolving, however, as more cases are confirmed. Many health experts believe that the rate will drop as the number of cases rises. That's because an estimated 80% of coronavirus cases are mild, and patients checking into hospitals have the most severe symptoms. People with symptoms mild enough to recover at home without seeking medical treatment aren't counted in the official totals.

The novel coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China, in December has killed over 3,200 people and infected nearly 94,000 people, mostly in China. It has spread to at least 80 other countries. The US has confirmed more than 125 cases and at least nine deaths.

Older people are far likelier to die from the coronavirus than younger people, and the same is true for the flu — though not to the same extent.

[lepton]

Thanks for that chart. The numbers I saw in another study posted showed only about half of the COVID-19 victims were those over 70, but this makes more sense.

Per that chart (and using excess significant digits), 95.7% of those who die from the flu are 50+, and 89% are 65+.

For the COVID-19, 96.5% are 50+, 92.0% of those 60+, and 79.4% of those 70+ (the true elderly).

They did not provide the same age brackets, and such crude interpolation has its issues, but COVID-19 looks slightly shifted towards the younger seniors.

The difference in deaths at the rates for those 50+ based upon the 3140 currently reported as dead represents 36 people. This is an insignificant difference even before proper significant digits are applied. In short, no more deadly for the elderly than a normal flu.

Those who died in the nursing home in Washington appear to have already survived a recent flu.

[null and void]

Bring Out Your Dead

Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.

The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.

So far the false positive rate is 100%.

At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.

*sigh* Such is life, and death...

If a quarantine saves just one child's life, it's worth it.

[PIF]

There is no reliable data from China - their numbers are based on political security not real life.

[lepton]

Thanks for that chart. The numbers I saw in another study posted showed only about half of the COVID-19 victims were those over 70, but this makes more sense.

Per that chart (and using excess significant digits), 95.7% of those who die from the flu are 50+, and 89% are 65+.

For the COVID-19, 96.5% are 50+, 92.0% of those 60+, and 79.4% of those 70+ (the true elderly).

They did not provide the same age brackets, and such crude interpolation has its issues, but COVID-19 looks slightly shifted towards the younger seniors.

The difference in deaths at the rates for those 50+ based upon the 3140 currently reported as dead represents (Correction, 26) people. This is an insignificant difference even before proper significant digits are applied. In short, no more deadly for the elderly than a normal flu.

Those who died in the nursing home in Washington appear to have already survived a recent flu.

[null and void]

Sorry, I reached peak COVID about two weeks ago. I can’t read one more thing about.

Yet here you are...

[PIF]

COVID419 Type S = COVID19 Type S

[null and void]

And times 100 to give a percentage is?....

[Sirius Lee]

Check your math ... 125 into 9 = .o72

Let's make it easier for you to visualize how percents work. If you are paid 100 dollars for a day of giving super expert math lessons, but after taxes, only have 10 dollars at the end of the day when they pay you, then you've been robbed of 90% of your hard won income and left with only 10%, correct?

Now extrapolate 9/125 X 100 = how many percent?

[TigerClaws]

CDC is an inept government agency. Seattle had to develop THEIR OWN TEST to figure out what was going on:

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/03/washington-state-risks-seeing-explosion-in-coronavirus-without-dramatic-action-new-analysis-says/

Frustrated by the lack of testing resulting from the problem with the CDC-developed kit, the Seattle Flu Study began using an in-house developed test to look for Covid-19 in samples from people who had flu-like symptoms but who had tested negative for flu. That work — permissible because it was research — uncovered the Snohomish County teenager.

[Robert DeLong]

A virus that has a higher percentage of death does not make it deadlier. The flu is deadlier, period. It has more deaths associated with it than does the coronavirus.

[lepton]

The folks in NJ, at least northeastern, are going to become concerned when they become aware of this:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3821711/posts
“One thousand people who may have come into contact with a New York attorney who infected his wife, two children and a neighbor with coronavirus have been ordered to self-quarantine”

Otherwise, yeah, it’s just flyover territory (including China). :)

[MHGinTN]

I was checking your math, not disagreeing with it. I did it that way to point to the number 125 as a too low figure. Cut the snark.

[MHGinTN]

It makes it more lethal ...

[Repeal The 17th]

Deaths in the USA ... Every Single Day ...
Heart Attack - 1,774
Cancer - 1,641
Accident (all kinds) - 466
Asthma, etc. - 439
Stroke - 401
Alzheimers - 333
Diabetes - 229
Flu/Pneumonia - 153
Kidney Failure - 139
Suicide - 129

[null and void]

Inept? I hope so. The alternative is deliberate sabotage.

[lepton]

Goodness, I hate to see what “panic” looks like! My husband was talking to a friend who told him he witnessed 2 guys literally rolling on the floor fighting over the last package of toilet paper at Costco.

---

If this gets going at all in the states there’ll be panic.

But less so than if this had hit completely out of the blue rather than being an undercurrent.

As it is, there’s been warning enough for the past month that there’s been the opportunity to stock up without disrupting things. Likewise, companies have begun making preparation for more work-from-home and other basic precautions.

The more people there are who prepared, the less likely they are to need to prepare. :)

[dixjea]

Will the Coronavirus subside in a few months as the weather in the Northern Hemisphere gets warmer like the flu season subsides?

[lepton]

A virus that has a higher percentage of death does not make it deadlier. […] It has more deaths associated with it than does the coronavirus.

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Yep. Deadliness is infectiousness*lethality. Infectiousness is limited from transmittal rate by how long it takes symptoms to appear, how quick those with it die, and the number of susceptible individuals.

The flu is deadlier, period.

---

That’s an open question, since COVID-19 is still in the growth part of the curve, and even counting China’s numbers only a little more than half are recovered from it (or died) yet.

[Ancesthntr]

“Many school systems may have to close down, and less to protect the children, who would only get a mild to severe “cold”, than to protect their older relatives.”

---

My HS Senior daughter has a colleague in JROTC who has been sick for over a month. She was out for a week with flu-like symptoms, then came back (because the parents wanted her in school), and hasn’t gotten any better. They were taking her for a CV test today...supposedly. I wouldn’t even begin to know where to get one, the damned thing is brand new (about a week old). I wouldn’t allow my kid in school if she was that sick, and would have already brought her to at least a dozen docs and hospitals to see WTF was going on. Teens just don’t get sick for that long.

Meanwhile, something like 3,400 kids go to that school. If she has it, then 3.400 families are going to be PISSED, and incredibly inconvenienced when the school is shut down.

[Robert DeLong]

No it does not. If you get 30,000 deaths from the flu, and 11 deaths with the coronavirus, it does not make it more deadly. We do not know a lot about this virus. For example, are there people who have the coronavirus but exhibit no symptoms? If there are more people infected than we realize then that would skew the numbers, and it may explain where some cases are coming from as well.

About 36% of those diagnosed with MERS died, however, only 2,000 cases were ever reported. They added the following caveat: The overall risk of death may be lower as those with mild symptoms may be undiagnosed. Same may be in play here. Because so much is unknown we can not state with certainty that it is deadlier. Just that of the known reported cases the percentage of deaths is a little higher.

So far in the U.S. alone, the flu death toll is about 18,000, which is significantly higher than the death toll so far from the coronavirus.

So in reality this is nothing more than wild speculation. While the claim is true, when you examine the claim you begin to see the hype, and the realization that the numbers could very easily, and most likely does, represent an incomplete picture.

But by all means, run out in a panic and buy up all the bottled water you fear you may need. Or you can calm down and start looking at it employing more critical thinking.

At this point it time there has been minimal threat to residents of the U.S. Even throughout the entire world at this point the impact has not been that bad. Last time I looked there were about 90,000 cases worldwide, the majority in China itself, that have resulted in 3,000 deaths.

In comparison 32,000 deaths occur in the U.S. from auto accidents. Has that caused you to stop driving, or even cause you concern about continuing to drive?