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The flu, even with vaccines, does not overwhelm medical personel, facilities and logistics as this does. And the total death toll, given the current dynamics,

The flu, even with vaccines, does not overwhelm medical personel, facilities and logistics as this does. And the total death toll, given the current dynamics, is already going way way worse than the flu.

bsaul 7y ago
Agreed, and that's why i changed my mind since i saw what's going on in europe. I just wanted to explain my initial reaction, based on what happened in china and by reading various medical people give their opinion.
casefields 7y ago
Yes it does. 2018: Flu stomps the nation, overwhelming ERs and leaving 20 children dead: https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/12/health/flu-surveillance-cdc/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/12/health/flu-surveillance-cdc/i... 2013: Flu Outbreak Overwhelms Hospitals: https://fox8.com/news/flu-outbreak-overwhelms-area-hospitals/ https://fox8.com/news/flu-outbreak-overwhelms-area-hospitals... 2017: Hospitals Overwhelmed by Flu Patients Are Treating Them in Tents: https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patients/ https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patie... I still have yet to hear from the medical and nursing schools about increasing the number of students for the future.
- Lewton 7y ago
  Those articles do not in anyway describe situations that are close to what we're seeing now in new york, italy, france and spain The flu is still terrible, btw. And I hope this situation will increase the vaccination rates for the flu
- Juliate 7y ago
  I don't think you picture yet the scale at which we are all hit right now...
ShorsHammer 7y ago
> the total death toll, given the current dynamics, is already going way way worse than the flu Fully aware of the types that will come out of the woodwork for simply saying this, however: no, it's currently still not on track for even a mild flu year yet alone a bad one. A bad year for influenza is about 650,000 deaths worldwide, pneumonia deaths are often an aftereffect of the flu and it kills 2.5 million on average each year. SARS-COV-2 has killed 60,000 in 5 months despite having no vaccine or known medicinal treatment, mainly due to locally overstretched medical resources more than anything else. It's not even close to being equivalent to a bad flu year yet, and that's ignoring the secondary deaths.
- nullc 7y ago
  > A bad year for influenza is about Maybe about tenth your figure, once you exclude non-flu pneumonia-- which is about where we are now for covid19. Flu death figures are Flu+Pneumonia because they usually don't check. Efforts to separate flu from flu + pneumonia all result in flu being a small fraction of the total ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3827586/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3827586/ ).
  - xscott 7y ago
    The point still holds to compare Covid vs flu+pneumonia then. This is some weird No True Scotsman argument you're making where it's not the "True Flu" if they had pneumonia as well... (likely getting pneumonia because of the flu) I doubt the dead people would be comforted by such a subtle distinction.
    - KMag 7y ago
      The plus operator here is "and/or" not "and", but I presume you must have understood this. The GP's point is that flu+pnumonia = (flu) U (non-flu pneumonia). Nobody is denying that flu with pneumonia is flu.
      - xscott 7y ago

bsaul 7y ago

Agreed, and that's why i changed my mind since i saw what's going on in europe. I just wanted to explain my initial reaction, based on what happened in china and by reading various medical people give their opinion.

casefields 7y ago

Yes it does. 2018: Flu stomps the nation, overwhelming ERs and leaving 20 children dead: https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/12/health/flu-surveillance-cdc/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/12/health/flu-surveillance-cdc/i... 2013: Flu Outbreak Overwhelms Hospitals: https://fox8.com/news/flu-outbreak-overwhelms-area-hospitals/ https://fox8.com/news/flu-outbreak-overwhelms-area-hospitals... 2017: Hospitals Overwhelmed by Flu Patients Are Treating Them in Tents: https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patients/ https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patie... I still have yet to hear from the medical and nursing schools about increasing the number of students for the future.

Lewton 7y ago
Those articles do not in anyway describe situations that are close to what we're seeing now in new york, italy, france and spain The flu is still terrible, btw. And I hope this situation will increase the vaccination rates for the flu
Juliate 7y ago
I don't think you picture yet the scale at which we are all hit right now...

ShorsHammer 7y ago

> the total death toll, given the current dynamics, is already going way way worse than the flu Fully aware of the types that will come out of the woodwork for simply saying this, however: no, it's currently still not on track for even a mild flu year yet alone a bad one. A bad year for influenza is about 650,000 deaths worldwide, pneumonia deaths are often an aftereffect of the flu and it kills 2.5 million on average each year. SARS-COV-2 has killed 60,000 in 5 months despite having no vaccine or known medicinal treatment, mainly due to locally overstretched medical resources more than anything else. It's not even close to being equivalent to a bad flu year yet, and that's ignoring the secondary deaths.

nullc 7y ago
> A bad year for influenza is about Maybe about tenth your figure, once you exclude non-flu pneumonia-- which is about where we are now for covid19. Flu death figures are Flu+Pneumonia because they usually don't check. Efforts to separate flu from flu + pneumonia all result in flu being a small fraction of the total ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3827586/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3827586/ ).
- xscott 7y ago
  The point still holds to compare Covid vs flu+pneumonia then. This is some weird No True Scotsman argument you're making where it's not the "True Flu" if they had pneumonia as well... (likely getting pneumonia because of the flu) I doubt the dead people would be comforted by such a subtle distinction.
  - KMag 7y ago
    The plus operator here is "and/or" not "and", but I presume you must have understood this. The GP's point is that flu+pnumonia = (flu) U (non-flu pneumonia). Nobody is denying that flu with pneumonia is flu.
    - xscott 7y ago