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Hospitalization rates per infection are greater for covid than for flu. What matters is hospital capacity, to protect against greater non-covid death rates.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
I agree, but this is not universally believed. Many people argue that hospital capacity is not what matters, and we must continue lockdowns even if hospitals won't be overloaded to eradicate the disease.
- tunesmith 7y ago
  Ah, yeah. If hospitals are fine, I think lockdowns can be swapped for a contact tracing system, assuming enough people use it and assuming easy test access and 24-hour test turnarounds. (And even then... use masks.) But, in the absence of that, if a hospital is at 50% capacity, I don't agree with opening up a lockdown until a hospital gets to 95% capacity. (The game changes entirely if we get a good anti-viral.)
- DeonPenny 7y ago
  But if that held then we'd eradicate flu and the common cold two. Quarantines don't eradicate disease they slow the spread but the area under the curve is constant. I doubt will change the number of infected is a constant regardless of the rate.
  - tunesmith 7y ago
    That's only true if medical and technological advancements don't happen. A vaccine a year from now means less death if we've locked down in the meantime, compared to if we haven't locked down. Similarly, if we scale up testing and contact tracing to the point we can eventually eradicate the disease through targeted quarantines, a preceding lockdown means less death. If instead we don't experience any advancements, then right, it just means the same number of infections are spread out over a longer period of time.
    - DeonPenny 7y ago
      Which for me the later seems more possible simply because vaccines from what I heard would take 5 years. Thinks like SARS and zika still have no vaccine despite being around for years.
  - greedo 7y ago
    The flu mutates. The common cold isn't a single virus, but one of hundreds lumped together, that also mutate. So there's no long term herd immunity for either.
DeonPenny 7y ago
But we can't say that it could just be that infection because of a lack of herd immunity is the only thing preventing something like the flu from having the same result. If they have the same hospitalization rate yet covid-19 infection rate is twice the flu because of the lack of immunity you would immediately double the hospitalizations. There's two variables in that equation

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago

I agree, but this is not universally believed. Many people argue that hospital capacity is not what matters, and we must continue lockdowns even if hospitals won't be overloaded to eradicate the disease.

tunesmith 7y ago
Ah, yeah. If hospitals are fine, I think lockdowns can be swapped for a contact tracing system, assuming enough people use it and assuming easy test access and 24-hour test turnarounds. (And even then... use masks.) But, in the absence of that, if a hospital is at 50% capacity, I don't agree with opening up a lockdown until a hospital gets to 95% capacity. (The game changes entirely if we get a good anti-viral.)
DeonPenny 7y ago
But if that held then we'd eradicate flu and the common cold two. Quarantines don't eradicate disease they slow the spread but the area under the curve is constant. I doubt will change the number of infected is a constant regardless of the rate.
- tunesmith 7y ago
  That's only true if medical and technological advancements don't happen. A vaccine a year from now means less death if we've locked down in the meantime, compared to if we haven't locked down. Similarly, if we scale up testing and contact tracing to the point we can eventually eradicate the disease through targeted quarantines, a preceding lockdown means less death. If instead we don't experience any advancements, then right, it just means the same number of infections are spread out over a longer period of time.
  - DeonPenny 7y ago
    Which for me the later seems more possible simply because vaccines from what I heard would take 5 years. Thinks like SARS and zika still have no vaccine despite being around for years.
- greedo 7y ago
  The flu mutates. The common cold isn't a single virus, but one of hundreds lumped together, that also mutate. So there's no long term herd immunity for either.

DeonPenny 7y ago

But we can't say that it could just be that infection because of a lack of herd immunity is the only thing preventing something like the flu from having the same result. If they have the same hospitalization rate yet covid-19 infection rate is twice the flu because of the lack of immunity you would immediately double the hospitalizations. There's two variables in that equation