8 ms·

> Loyola University Health System in Chicago—which set a hospital flu-activity record of 190 confirmed cases between January 7 and 13 It's not even close to wh

> Loyola University Health System in Chicago—which set a hospital flu-activity record of 190 confirmed cases between January 7 and 13 It's not even close to what we saw just this week from coronavirus. Stop making a comparison where there isn't one to be made, this is much worse than the flu.

js2 7y ago
Coronavirus is serious. Also, get your flu shot. I don't understand why this is even remotely controversial.
- mrb 7y ago
  I suppose his point is that the coronavirus overwhelms hospitals much, much more seriously than the flu does.
  - js2 7y ago
    All the more reason to get your flu shot to reduce the chance that you end up in the hospital using valuable space needed for Coronavirus patients. I'm not minimizing Coronavirus. I'm trying to leverage the attention people are paying to it to emphasize the importance of vaccination.
    - mrb 7y ago
      I agree, getting the flu shot is very important. My whole family gets it every season.
dingaling 7y ago
> this is much worse than the flu. The CDC estimates that up to 710,000 Americans have been hospitalised by the flu in the past six months out of 54 million infected. Up to 59,000 of them died. IN SIX MONTHS. In the USA alone. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-e... Stop trivialising influenza.
- 3JPLW 7y ago
  > This coronavirus hasn't even approached those levels globally in five months. Three months, and yes, that's how exponential growth works. It's pretty small at the beginning. You'd think a community of (largely) computer scientists would appreciate the power of exponential growth. Edit: ah, looks like you're editing your post.
- viklove 7y ago
  It's hard to take you seriously when you take a range given by the CDC (38,000,000 – 54,000,000) and cherry-pick it as a specific figure that makes your position look stronger. You're arguing in bad faith. Even according to the figures you've given from the CDC, the flu has a 0.1% death rate, which is nowhere near the 1.4% death rate COVID-19 currently has in the US. No one is trivializing the flu, but it's silly to say we should relax w.r.t. COVID-19 because we're used to the flu. At a minimum it kills TEN TIMES as many infected people as the regular flu, even without considering vaccines. Influenza is chump change compared to COVID-19.
  - rootusrootus 7y ago
    > 1.4% death rate We don't know that. At all. In the past these kinds of on-the-fly estimates during the spread of an infection have turned out to be overestimates. Sometimes by an order of magnitude.
    - viklove 7y ago
      Source?
- TYPE_FASTER 7y ago
  59k deaths out of 54 million infections is a 0.1% fatality rate. While the average fatality rate for COVID19 using global statistics is around 4%, let's use South Korea as an example because they have been testing much more frequently than other countries. The South Korea fatality rate is about 1%, so we'd see 540k fatalities in the US for similar infection rates. Also, initial R0 transmission statistics for COVID19 look to be in the 2.5 range, where the R0 for seasonal flu is around 1.3. So COVID19 is 2x as transmissible, and 10x as deadly. I don't think the conversation is around dismissing the seriousness of the flu, and more around emphasizing the risk of COVID19.

js2 7y ago

Coronavirus is serious. Also, get your flu shot. I don't understand why this is even remotely controversial.

mrb 7y ago
I suppose his point is that the coronavirus overwhelms hospitals much, much more seriously than the flu does.
- js2 7y ago
  All the more reason to get your flu shot to reduce the chance that you end up in the hospital using valuable space needed for Coronavirus patients. I'm not minimizing Coronavirus. I'm trying to leverage the attention people are paying to it to emphasize the importance of vaccination.
  - mrb 7y ago
    I agree, getting the flu shot is very important. My whole family gets it every season.

dingaling 7y ago

> this is much worse than the flu. The CDC estimates that up to 710,000 Americans have been hospitalised by the flu in the past six months out of 54 million infected. Up to 59,000 of them died. IN SIX MONTHS. In the USA alone. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-e... Stop trivialising influenza.

3JPLW 7y ago
> This coronavirus hasn't even approached those levels globally in five months. Three months, and yes, that's how exponential growth works. It's pretty small at the beginning. You'd think a community of (largely) computer scientists would appreciate the power of exponential growth. Edit: ah, looks like you're editing your post.
viklove 7y ago
It's hard to take you seriously when you take a range given by the CDC (38,000,000 – 54,000,000) and cherry-pick it as a specific figure that makes your position look stronger. You're arguing in bad faith. Even according to the figures you've given from the CDC, the flu has a 0.1% death rate, which is nowhere near the 1.4% death rate COVID-19 currently has in the US. No one is trivializing the flu, but it's silly to say we should relax w.r.t. COVID-19 because we're used to the flu. At a minimum it kills TEN TIMES as many infected people as the regular flu, even without considering vaccines. Influenza is chump change compared to COVID-19.
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  > 1.4% death rate We don't know that. At all. In the past these kinds of on-the-fly estimates during the spread of an infection have turned out to be overestimates. Sometimes by an order of magnitude.
  - viklove 7y ago
    Source?
TYPE_FASTER 7y ago
59k deaths out of 54 million infections is a 0.1% fatality rate. While the average fatality rate for COVID19 using global statistics is around 4%, let's use South Korea as an example because they have been testing much more frequently than other countries. The South Korea fatality rate is about 1%, so we'd see 540k fatalities in the US for similar infection rates. Also, initial R0 transmission statistics for COVID19 look to be in the 2.5 range, where the R0 for seasonal flu is around 1.3. So COVID19 is 2x as transmissible, and 10x as deadly. I don't think the conversation is around dismissing the seriousness of the flu, and more around emphasizing the risk of COVID19.