4 ms·

I'm surprised how many people can compare it to the flu and be dismissive. If it was possible to catch "the flu" early and never have to deal with it, how much

by pfranz 7y ago

I'm surprised how many people can compare it to the flu and be dismissive. If it was possible to catch "the flu" early and never have to deal with it, how much would that be worth? 30,000-60,000 people die every year just in the US and there are herculean efforts to produce, manufacture, and distribute a new vaccine twice a year. So now we're cool with having an additional flu going around? That's separate from the concerns of too many people getting sick quickly, overwhelming our health system, so people who otherwise would get medical attention die.

lurquer 7y ago
>So now we're cool with having an additional flu going around? When people use the word 'flu' they are often referring to the illness and not the virus. That is, there are several viruses that can cause 'flu-like' symptoms besides the influenza virus. Without definitive evidence that the covid-19 is 'new', it is reasonable for people to wonder if some cases of the illness commonly referred to as 'flu' for the past 1000 years may actually have been caused by covid-19. In short, are we absolutely sure that there is some statistically signicant increase in the number of flu-like illnesses in the past three months?
- n0rbwah 7y ago
  I think it's pretty clear from the scientific data that the covid-19 virus is a recent zoonotic infection that jumped from bats to humans (with possibly another animal in between). How could it possibly have caused any human illness before that? BTW, covid-19 is the disease (same as the flu). The virus is named SARS-Cov-2.
  - lurquer 7y ago
    >I think it's pretty clear from the scientific data that the covid-19 virus is a recent zoonotic infection that jumped from bats to humans (with possibly another animal in between). I know that's what most think. But, what is the evidence? If one were to test samples from 'flu' patients from the 1980s, how do we know one wouldn't find SARS-Cov-2 in some samples? Has anyone done this? Merely finding similarities between the bat version and human version doesn't tell us anything about how long it's been in the human population. (For that matter, it doesn't tell us if the virus went from bat to human or human to bat... there are for more bats exposed to sources of human viruses than the other way around, you know...)
vanniv 7y ago
There is a difference between "you know, we should try to do something about this" and the "OMG, the best-case scenario is that 10% of the population is dead in six months! We're all gonna die! Summon the army and weld people's doors shut!" that people carry on about here all day long.

by pfranz 7y ago

lurquer 7y ago

>So now we're cool with having an additional flu going around? When people use the word 'flu' they are often referring to the illness and not the virus. That is, there are several viruses that can cause 'flu-like' symptoms besides the influenza virus. Without definitive evidence that the covid-19 is 'new', it is reasonable for people to wonder if some cases of the illness commonly referred to as 'flu' for the past 1000 years may actually have been caused by covid-19. In short, are we absolutely sure that there is some statistically signicant increase in the number of flu-like illnesses in the past three months?

n0rbwah 7y ago
I think it's pretty clear from the scientific data that the covid-19 virus is a recent zoonotic infection that jumped from bats to humans (with possibly another animal in between). How could it possibly have caused any human illness before that? BTW, covid-19 is the disease (same as the flu). The virus is named SARS-Cov-2.
- lurquer 7y ago
  >I think it's pretty clear from the scientific data that the covid-19 virus is a recent zoonotic infection that jumped from bats to humans (with possibly another animal in between). I know that's what most think. But, what is the evidence? If one were to test samples from 'flu' patients from the 1980s, how do we know one wouldn't find SARS-Cov-2 in some samples? Has anyone done this? Merely finding similarities between the bat version and human version doesn't tell us anything about how long it's been in the human population. (For that matter, it doesn't tell us if the virus went from bat to human or human to bat... there are for more bats exposed to sources of human viruses than the other way around, you know...)

vanniv 7y ago

There is a difference between "you know, we should try to do something about this" and the "OMG, the best-case scenario is that 10% of the population is dead in six months! We're all gonna die! Summon the army and weld people's doors shut!" that people carry on about here all day long.