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Considering how contagious it seems to be, I think if it had been circulating in the U.S. for months under the guise of flu, there would have been a mysterious

by dkarl 7y ago

Considering how contagious it seems to be, I think if it had been circulating in the U.S. for months under the guise of flu, there would have been a mysterious number of deaths of young, healthy people from flu that would have been recognized in hindsight as Covid-19.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
It's not clear that we would recognize it in hindsight. Flu seasons vary heavily in magnitude, and a large majority of flu tests come back negative in any season.
conradev 7y ago
Mortality in people under 40 for Covid-19 is only 0.2% according to the CCDC study: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-se... We’d be seeing a number of deaths in older people who would have otherwise been fine
- pmoriarty 7y ago
  The mortality estimates we have now are mostly based on numbers coming out of China, which are just not reliable. We should have better estimates in a couple of months, once more numbers come out of countries outside of China. Also, mortality rates are impacted not just by the disease itself but things such as how overwhelmed the health care system is, what measures are used to treat the disease, how many people actually get treated, population-specific or location-specific factors, etc. All of these factors could vary widely from place to place and cause different mortality rates, even if the virus infecting everyone is the same.
- dkarl 7y ago
  In either demographic the mortality is so much higher than the flu that it would be noticed. Otherwise we wouldn’t be worried; it would be like just another strain of the flu.
  - triangleman 7y ago
    To be fair, even if this new virus was equally deadly as the flu, it would be concerning. We don't have a "tamiflu" to treat it, it's more contagious than the flu, and could therefore overwhelm our health care systems.

by dkarl 7y ago

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago

It's not clear that we would recognize it in hindsight. Flu seasons vary heavily in magnitude, and a large majority of flu tests come back negative in any season.

conradev 7y ago

Mortality in people under 40 for Covid-19 is only 0.2% according to the CCDC study: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-se... We’d be seeing a number of deaths in older people who would have otherwise been fine

pmoriarty 7y ago
The mortality estimates we have now are mostly based on numbers coming out of China, which are just not reliable. We should have better estimates in a couple of months, once more numbers come out of countries outside of China. Also, mortality rates are impacted not just by the disease itself but things such as how overwhelmed the health care system is, what measures are used to treat the disease, how many people actually get treated, population-specific or location-specific factors, etc. All of these factors could vary widely from place to place and cause different mortality rates, even if the virus infecting everyone is the same.
dkarl 7y ago
In either demographic the mortality is so much higher than the flu that it would be noticed. Otherwise we wouldn’t be worried; it would be like just another strain of the flu.
- triangleman 7y ago
  To be fair, even if this new virus was equally deadly as the flu, it would be concerning. We don't have a "tamiflu" to treat it, it's more contagious than the flu, and could therefore overwhelm our health care systems.