3 ms·
Even if COVID-19 fatality rate is _lower_ than the regular flu, if it infects people faster to the point where those very few severe cases cannot get the help t
by d1zzy 7y ago
Even if COVID-19 fatality rate is _lower_ than the regular flu, if it infects people faster to the point where those very few severe cases cannot get the help they need because of health services being overwhelmed then it will potentially be resulting in a lot more deaths than the flu.
- umanwizard 7y agoI don't understand people downplaying this by saying it's only as bad as the flu. The flu is really fucking bad! Before widespread flu vaccination, it killed 50 million people in just one outbreak (Spanish flu). That's more than have been killed by HIV/AIDS combined in history. And we have no vaccine against COVID-19. Even nowadays, it still kills tens of thousands of people every year.
- drewcon 7y agoTo be fair. Seasonal flu usually induces secondary sickness (bacterial pneumonia) that causes mortality in the elderly and very young population. Spanish flu wiped out the young and elderly but also the middle aged directly with things like cytokine storms. Something we are not seeing with Covid 19.
- bcrosby95 7y agoCorrect. Note that there were multiple waves of the Spanish Flu. First wave was fairly mild and hit the young and elderly. Second wave hit the middle aged and wiped out a chunk of the population. The third wave was slightly worse than the first but much less deadly than the second - I couldn't find much detail about it when I last tried. Several theories on why it turned out this way, none of them relevant to the current situation though.