It's the rapid rate of increase if strong containment measures are not taken that is worrisome.
This is what's WORRISOME! and it's treated as "normal."
CDC estimates* that, from October 1, 2019, through March 7, 2020, there have been:
36,000,000 – 51,000,000 flu illnesses
17,000,000 – 24,000,000 flu medical visits
370,000 – 670,000 flu hospitalizations
22,000 – 55,000 flu deaths
And how about the 2018 flu season in the U.S.
CDC: 80,000 people died of flu last winter in U.S., highest death toll in 40 years.
It may be nothing more than the Good Lord's way of "thinning the herd."
Sad numbers (flu cases and fatalities). I am QUITE well aware of them & by no means dismiss them. My next youngest brother came this || far from being a flu fatality. My family and my Mom (barely able to make such a trip) drove over 1k miles straight through for the horrific experience to be bedside (behind the clear plastic) a family member just barely surviving ARDS (due to flu induced necrotic pneumonia.) He ended up with 2/3 lung scar tissue. (Rehab helped make the best of what is left.)
However, time does not (and will not) stop. The absolute numbers you cite are not as important as the second derivative, because it is where we are headed that matters most. This is NOT similar to “climate science” where there is no truly parallel long term (as in climate cycles) historical data to compare current circumstances and “inputs” to. By contrast, Epidemiology has many past examples to study and compare disease spread. Some happen every year. Measles. Various versions of the common cold (some are close relatives of COVID-19.) Ebola. Etc., etc., etc., as the King of Siam put it.
Flu has some “limiters”: It is only moderately contagious. Asymptotic & very mildly ill spreaders are much lower in number as a percentage of infected persons, than with COVID-19. In the majority of cases, flu at a minimum quickly makes the victim (if they have ANY sense whatsoever) go home and go to bed, or, go to the Dr. or ER. “Coming on quickly” greatly shortens the time a flu infectious person is walking around. Flu test capability is well established and adequate. The fatality rates (for those presumed infected) are generally around 0.1% And, though from year to year the efficacy varies, we have flu vaccines. Flu cases also diminish in warm weather.
For COVID-19, we have higher infectiousness, tons of asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic spreaders as a % of those infected, a protracted period of high to very high shedding while mildly symptomatic, (the level of viral shedding for totally asymptomatic cases is not yet well established, IMO), the serious case rate and CFR is AT LEAST as high as flu and will likely end up several times as high, and, a vaccine is at least a year off, with some chance NO safe vaccine can be found in the next few years. (See: SARS.)
Test capacity started off at zero. Warm weather - who knows? I am hopeful it will help some.
The only “limiters” effective to date with COVID-19 that I know of are:
Limiter package 1) VERY strong screening, testing, and (in effect) isolation from the outside of the population to be protected. See for example: Singapore or Hong Kong. (This is not without economic costs, but so far they have not shown to be disastrous.) Everybody wears masks.
OR
Limiter package 2) If community transmission is partially established, and very large scale testing and contact tracing capability is available, quarantine of all suspected cases with a drastic reduction in all travel, social activities, etc., can be put into effect. Masks help. See: South Korea. SK is by no means out of the woods yet, but is looking better than a few days ago. This is where the US appears to be heading, except our bureaucracy screwed the pooch on the testing, early on, so we have an immense amount of catch-up to do. And, we are insanely short on masks. My guess: If everything goes well, I think we might be able to squeak by with a low enough rate of serious cases to not collapse the health care system.* Our tremendous military logistics capability will help. Having a bad flu season compounds the stress on the health care system, however, the measures noted above to reduce spread of COVID-19 should also help reduce flu cases. The NYC Metro area may be very dicey when it comes to health care capacity.
*In this scenario, the economic effects are going to be severe, but not disastrous, and with good management the recovery can be strong enough by Nov. that Trump gets re-elected, we hold the Senate and may even snag the House. Long term, we can keep a lid on the virus, but cost = “cloudy” in my crystal ball. If no vaccine, many societal changes in store. There are many questions on all sides of balances of costs and lives. We do not, for example, want to cost more lives in “limiting” the virus than the virus itself takes.
OR
Once community transmission is in full swing, a country or region can try to slam into full lockdown mode. See: Hubei Province, China. Italy appears to be “getting there”. (I don’t know if the Italians are welding apartments shut on people yet, but most commercial activity and almost all social activity & travel is banned - in the entire country.) This is just economically devastating. China is big and vibrant enough that if the rest of the country can hold serious cases to a level that does not overwhelm health care capacity AND resume close to normal economic activity, then Hubei Province can be restored. That is NOT a small “if”. For Italy, it is even larger.
Again, it doesn’t really matter what flu numbers you highlight. Unlimited, COVID-19 already has shown us that it accelerates (2nd derivative) at a rate that will leave flu in the dust in fairly short order. (Flu would accelerate fast too, but it has those limiters I discussed.) From observing other countries, we can begin to get a pretty good idea of what the effects of various human-imposed limiters (and when they are applied) on COVID-19 are.
What limiter or limiters do you see that everyone else has missed? Deus ex machina not included.
That should be:
“Limiter package 3) Once community transmission...”