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> Why should a disease that is less bad in every conceivable way be so much more panic inducing? Because it's worse in every way: the initial containment has f

by noja 7y ago

> Why should a disease that is less bad in every conceivable way be so much more panic inducing? Because it's worse in every way: the initial containment has failed, the base immunity does not exist, the transmission rate is much higher, and the virus is more deadly.

grawprog 7y ago
>and the virus is more deadly. Explain this, because this is the part I just can't wrap my head around. How is a disease that's deadly towards a much smaller percentage of the population 'more deadly'. Children aren't affected, anyone under the age of 60 is mildly affected barring pre-existing health problems. How is that more deadly than, a 30% mortality rate for young otherwise healthy individuals in the case of 2009's pandemic?
- noja 7y ago
  Don't forget containment failed.
  - grawprog 7y ago
    Normally a comment like yours lacking any kind of reasonable explanation or arguement would be against hn's rules, but I'm assuming in this time of crisis this will be ignored. That doesn't explain how it's more deadly. More deadly implies it kills more people faster. This is very much not the case no matter how much it's spread and by comparison, it's still contained more than both of those other pandemics were. Those each affected millions of people over a few months. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ We're at 167,543 with a total of 76,590 recoveries as of this comment. For a website full of people used to dealing with big numbers there sure seems to be a lot of blind just ignoring of said numbers in exchange for emotional reaction.
    - gridlockd 7y ago
      By the rate of mortality, it kills way more people than H1N1 or the 2014 flu. By the rate of infection, it infects more people than SARS or MERS and already has done so. None of these diseases managed to overwhelm the healthcare system of a developed nation like Italy. Clearly, the potential danger is therefore far greater than any of those "closed cases". Furthermore, the "deadliest" viruses in terms of rate and velocity of death are not as dangerous to the population as a whole, because most of the infected people fall over dead before infecting anyone else. > We're at 167,543 with a total of 76,590 recoveries as of this comment. We're also doubling the number of cases every 2.5 days in those countries that haven't managed to contain the spread. In Italy, that number (~20,000) has exceeded the capacity of the healthcare system.
- gridlockd 7y ago
  Mortality in 2009 was 0.03%, not 30%.
- greedo 7y ago
  This site (https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus) has an excellent chart comparing the severity of COVID-19 vs the flu: For all ages, it's basically 12-24x more lethal than the flu. For 0-19, 12 to 25x For 20-49, 6-16x For 50-59, 9-21x For 60+, 4-7x

by noja 7y ago

grawprog 7y ago

>and the virus is more deadly. Explain this, because this is the part I just can't wrap my head around. How is a disease that's deadly towards a much smaller percentage of the population 'more deadly'. Children aren't affected, anyone under the age of 60 is mildly affected barring pre-existing health problems. How is that more deadly than, a 30% mortality rate for young otherwise healthy individuals in the case of 2009's pandemic?

noja 7y ago
Don't forget containment failed.
- grawprog 7y ago
  Normally a comment like yours lacking any kind of reasonable explanation or arguement would be against hn's rules, but I'm assuming in this time of crisis this will be ignored. That doesn't explain how it's more deadly. More deadly implies it kills more people faster. This is very much not the case no matter how much it's spread and by comparison, it's still contained more than both of those other pandemics were. Those each affected millions of people over a few months. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ We're at 167,543 with a total of 76,590 recoveries as of this comment. For a website full of people used to dealing with big numbers there sure seems to be a lot of blind just ignoring of said numbers in exchange for emotional reaction.
  - gridlockd 7y ago
    By the rate of mortality, it kills way more people than H1N1 or the 2014 flu. By the rate of infection, it infects more people than SARS or MERS and already has done so. None of these diseases managed to overwhelm the healthcare system of a developed nation like Italy. Clearly, the potential danger is therefore far greater than any of those "closed cases". Furthermore, the "deadliest" viruses in terms of rate and velocity of death are not as dangerous to the population as a whole, because most of the infected people fall over dead before infecting anyone else. > We're at 167,543 with a total of 76,590 recoveries as of this comment. We're also doubling the number of cases every 2.5 days in those countries that haven't managed to contain the spread. In Italy, that number (~20,000) has exceeded the capacity of the healthcare system.
gridlockd 7y ago
Mortality in 2009 was 0.03%, not 30%.
greedo 7y ago
This site (https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus) has an excellent chart comparing the severity of COVID-19 vs the flu: For all ages, it's basically 12-24x more lethal than the flu. For 0-19, 12 to 25x For 20-49, 6-16x For 50-59, 9-21x For 60+, 4-7x