3 ms·

Interesting, but the question is what it implies for public policy. In particular, a lot of people on the right argue this ifr is not much worse than the flu, s

Interesting, but the question is what it implies for public policy. In particular, a lot of people on the right argue this ifr is not much worse than the flu, so there should be no government dictated restrictions. Well to address that we need to calculate the numbers. And to start, the flu death numbers are as low as they are because we have a vaccine, and every year there is an aggressive campaign aimed at the people most likely to die for the disease. We don't yet have a covid vaccine, and it is highly transmissible, so if we did nothing to prevent its spread it would likely reach a majority of people. In the US that means at least 200 million. Now multiply that by 0.2% and you get at least 400,000 deaths, 8 times the number for a bad flu season. I say that is high enough to merit aggressive governmental action to halt transmission until we get a vaccine. For those who say no, I would ask what, if anything, would be a high enough number?

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
It's not a binary decision. Every reasonable person agrees the government should take action; the questions are how much is needed and how severe it can be.
- woodandsteel 6y ago
  I agree, it's not a binary solution. But there is a significant portion of the American public, including Trump for a good while, and off and on today, that thinks the government should be doing little or nothing.
vikramkr 6y ago
The flu is also really bad. Making sure you are vaccinated before working in a hospital is a requirement is taken seriously, and the 1918 flu outbreak was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history. Don't underestimate the flu. Sometimes, I wonder if we would respect it more if we had truly or nearly vanquished it like Smallpox and polio. The way we have it now, just barely under control with the constant specter of a new pandemic, such as h5n1, seems to lead to less respect for how dangerous it really is, since we just see it as a really bad cold with a kind if ineffective vaccine instead of the dangerous killer that it actually is. If coronavirus was as bad as the flu, we'd be in a really bad situation. But it doesnt seem to mutate as easily or have the ability to rearrange its genome on the fly, so a vaccine might be able to defeat it properly and for good.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

It's not a binary decision. Every reasonable person agrees the government should take action; the questions are how much is needed and how severe it can be.

woodandsteel 6y ago
I agree, it's not a binary solution. But there is a significant portion of the American public, including Trump for a good while, and off and on today, that thinks the government should be doing little or nothing.

vikramkr 6y ago

The flu is also really bad. Making sure you are vaccinated before working in a hospital is a requirement is taken seriously, and the 1918 flu outbreak was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history. Don't underestimate the flu. Sometimes, I wonder if we would respect it more if we had truly or nearly vanquished it like Smallpox and polio. The way we have it now, just barely under control with the constant specter of a new pandemic, such as h5n1, seems to lead to less respect for how dangerous it really is, since we just see it as a really bad cold with a kind if ineffective vaccine instead of the dangerous killer that it actually is. If coronavirus was as bad as the flu, we'd be in a really bad situation. But it doesnt seem to mutate as easily or have the ability to rearrange its genome on the fly, so a vaccine might be able to defeat it properly and for good.