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but how do these numbers compare to general flu fatality rates ?

by zabana 7y ago

HarHarVeryFunny 7y ago
Why do people keep wanting to compare this to the flu? It's a completely random choice of comparison. Flu is caused by the influenza virus, COVID-19 is caused by the SARS-CV2 virus - a coronavirus closely related to the SARS-CV virus that caused SARS. I guess if you are politically motivated then choosing a random non-scary disease like Flu to compare it to makes sense, but one might as well (perhaps with more justification) compare it to SARS and than panic and say "OMG it's already killed way more people than SARS!". Rather than comparing COVID-19 to anything else, what really makes sense is to listen to the infectious disease experts (not politicians), and follow what's happening in other countries.
- zabana 7y ago
  It does not change the fact that there are other viruses which are far more deadly than SARS-CV2. Should we go into full lockdown everytime there's an outbreak ? This is a very legitimate question to ask.
  - HarHarVeryFunny 7y ago
    That depends on what you mean by deadly .. percentage of deaths among people to get it, or absolute number of people who are likely to die from it. SARS-CV2 may not have the % kill rate of SARS-CV1, or other nasties like Ebola, etc, but it has potential to kill a LOT of people due to it's specific nature: - Many infected people are asymptomatic, so spread it unknowingly - It has a fairly long incubation period, so even those that will show symptoms (allowing them to be isolated) don't initially - Symptoms may be mild and confused with those of other diseases (such as flu!), resulting in failure to diagnose, hence allowing spread - The percentage death rate appears nothing to be complacent about. The Princess Diamond "experiment" (with 100% testing) indicates about a 1% death rate (10x that of flu), while in Italy it's running at about 10% of detected cases. - This is a novel virus to which we have no immunity. If it's still around next year things may be better (and better yet if we have a vaccine), but this year it'll be bad if not managed Apparently what caused Trump to eventually take this seriously was an Imperial College, UK report indicating that "do nothing" would result in a couple of million deaths in USA. Of course it's a legitimate question to ask if the cure is worse than the disease, but it's both politically and morally impossible not to act when you know you could save millions of lives. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/coronavirus-us-uk-trump-boris-johnson-covid-19-response-science-paper-a9407946.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/coronavirus-us-uk...

but how do these numbers compare to general flu fatality rates ?

by zabana 7y ago

but how do these numbers compare to general flu fatality rates ?

Why do people keep wanting to compare this to the flu? It's a completely random choice of comparison. Flu is caused by the influenza virus, COVID-19 is caused by the SARS-CV2 virus - a coronavirus closely related to the SARS-CV virus that caused SARS. I guess if you are politically motivated then choosing a random non-scary disease like Flu to compare it to makes sense, but one might as well (perhaps with more justification) compare it to SARS and than panic and say "OMG it's already killed way more people than SARS!". Rather than comparing COVID-19 to anything else, what really makes sense is to listen to the infectious disease experts (not politicians), and follow what's happening in other countries.

zabana 7y ago
It does not change the fact that there are other viruses which are far more deadly than SARS-CV2. Should we go into full lockdown everytime there's an outbreak ? This is a very legitimate question to ask.
- HarHarVeryFunny 7y ago
  That depends on what you mean by deadly .. percentage of deaths among people to get it, or absolute number of people who are likely to die from it. SARS-CV2 may not have the % kill rate of SARS-CV1, or other nasties like Ebola, etc, but it has potential to kill a LOT of people due to it's specific nature: - Many infected people are asymptomatic, so spread it unknowingly - It has a fairly long incubation period, so even those that will show symptoms (allowing them to be isolated) don't initially - Symptoms may be mild and confused with those of other diseases (such as flu!), resulting in failure to diagnose, hence allowing spread - The percentage death rate appears nothing to be complacent about. The Princess Diamond "experiment" (with 100% testing) indicates about a 1% death rate (10x that of flu), while in Italy it's running at about 10% of detected cases. - This is a novel virus to which we have no immunity. If it's still around next year things may be better (and better yet if we have a vaccine), but this year it'll be bad if not managed Apparently what caused Trump to eventually take this seriously was an Imperial College, UK report indicating that "do nothing" would result in a couple of million deaths in USA. Of course it's a legitimate question to ask if the cure is worse than the disease, but it's both politically and morally impossible not to act when you know you could save millions of lives. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/coronavirus-us-uk-trump-boris-johnson-covid-19-response-science-paper-a9407946.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/coronavirus-us-uk...