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> 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 in

> 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.
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  > using global statistics Let's keep it real, the flu infection rate given by the CDC is hindsight knowledge. The real time "global statistics" for COVID19 are with vastly restricted testing. There's not really a valid comparison to be made at this point.
  - cycomanic 7y ago
    Exactly everyone who is quoting numbers for flu deaths needs to realise these are estimates based on the statistics of how deaths vary year to year, i. e. looking at how many more people died in a flu year compared to other years (simplified). Most people actually don't die of the flu itself but secondary infections (the number of deaths linked directlybto the flu are orders of magnitude lower). Corona directly kills people. The other thing to remember is the lag in the calculations, the people dying now are the ones who were admitted to hospital a week ago.
    - jfnixon 7y ago
      "Corona directly kills people" I'm not so sure about that. Covid may grease the skids, but the vast majority of people dying have health complications already. Kids aren't dying. Teens aren't dying. 20s and 30s aren't dying in numbers. If Covid were directly killing, we'd see kids dying.
gnulinux 7y ago
What a disappointing reply. We're trying to express that this is much worse than flu. Nobody is trivializing flu; flu is bad enough, the entire point is this is WORSE than flu, so our reaction should be more comprehensive than flu.

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.

rootusrootus 7y ago
> using global statistics Let's keep it real, the flu infection rate given by the CDC is hindsight knowledge. The real time "global statistics" for COVID19 are with vastly restricted testing. There's not really a valid comparison to be made at this point.
- cycomanic 7y ago
  Exactly everyone who is quoting numbers for flu deaths needs to realise these are estimates based on the statistics of how deaths vary year to year, i. e. looking at how many more people died in a flu year compared to other years (simplified). Most people actually don't die of the flu itself but secondary infections (the number of deaths linked directlybto the flu are orders of magnitude lower). Corona directly kills people. The other thing to remember is the lag in the calculations, the people dying now are the ones who were admitted to hospital a week ago.
  - jfnixon 7y ago
    "Corona directly kills people" I'm not so sure about that. Covid may grease the skids, but the vast majority of people dying have health complications already. Kids aren't dying. Teens aren't dying. 20s and 30s aren't dying in numbers. If Covid were directly killing, we'd see kids dying.

gnulinux 7y ago

What a disappointing reply. We're trying to express that this is much worse than flu. Nobody is trivializing flu; flu is bad enough, the entire point is this is WORSE than flu, so our reaction should be more comprehensive than flu.