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Can one seriously compare COVID-19 to a TB plague? Especially in context of schools where mortality rate for the school aged appears to be less than any seasona

Can one seriously compare COVID-19 to a TB plague? Especially in context of schools where mortality rate for the school aged appears to be less than any seasonal flu on record.

jedberg 6y ago
> Especially in context of schools where mortality rate for the school aged appears to be less than any seasonal flu on record. There is no good data to back that up. Since we've been keep track, most kids have been staying home, away from other kids. Schools have been closed, playgrounds have been closed, and so on. There is a good chance it doesn't affect them as much, but it's not entirely clear since they haven't been socializing as much as adults. The data we do have says that COVID-19 is 3 times deadlier than the flu for kids 5-17, and 190 times deadlier for kids 0-4, but that's because the numbers are small: https://i.insider.com/5ef234caf34d051bc821d0d8?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp https://i.insider.com/5ef234caf34d051bc821d0d8?width=700&for... Also, lots of adults work in schools. 1/3 of teachers in the US are over 50.
- SamReidHughes 6y ago
  All kids live with adults, and they get high exposure to the virus when their family gets infected. From this we know that kids have a low mortality rate.
  - gHosts 6y ago
    Conversely, their parents and grand parents get infected by the little plague carriers returning from the plague pit and general viral exchange facility that is school. And the grand parents and obese parents are vulnerable as all merry hell.
    - tomohawk 6y ago
      Nope. In Iceland, they did extensive testing, and genetic tracing of infections. Children infecting other children was extremely rare. In almost all cases, it was adults infecting them. There was only a SINGLE case of a child infecting an adult. https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/blog/hunting-down-covid-19/ https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/blog/hunting-down-covi...
      - pintxo 6y ago
        Could this simply be because schools were closed? If there is no child 2 child interaction, there cannot be an infection via this vector. Lockdown effectively places every family into its own bubble. Family members can only get infected by someone interaction with the outside world. If the kids stay home and only the adults interact with the outside world, than we would expect to see basically zero child 2 child infections.
        phillipseamore 6y ago
        Schools and kindergartens were never closed in Iceland for children under 16.
      - mattigames 6y ago
        There is a study from South Korea that says kids from 10 and up can spread the virus just as well as adults. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/health/coronavirus-children-schools.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/heal...
  - 2038AD 6y ago
    Has a statistical analysis been done or are you reasoning inductively?
- topkai22 6y ago
  No, at this point we can be pretty certain that this disease doesn't affect young children as badly as flu. Plenty of kids have tested positive for COVID19, but almost none have died. This disease is so pervasive we'd see excess showing up in that age group and we just don't. Kids just don't seem to get as sick as adults. What we don't know is how effective kids are as transmission vectors. If COVID19 spreads rapidly through a school and kids can get thier caretakers sick, thats a real problem. The limited data we have in suggests that not only do young kids not have limited disease, they also don't spread it easily, but all the data I've seen is almost anecdotal.
  - tcbawo 6y ago
    The long term effects of flu are known. The long term effects of Covid-19 on any demographic are unknown. Polio killed less than 2000 people per year prior to the development of the vaccine, but impacted many more.
  - jedberg 6y ago
    > No, at this point we can be pretty certain that this disease doesn't affect young children as badly as flu That's just straight up wrong. According to the CDC, as of June 23, COVID-19 was three times deadlier than the flu for kids 5-17, and 190 times deadlier for kids 0-4: https://i.insider.com/5ef234caf34d051bc821d0d8?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp https://i.insider.com/5ef234caf34d051bc821d0d8?width=700&for...
    - grandmczeb 6y ago
      That chart is extremely misleading. You can't compare estimated flu cases and deaths with confirmed COVID19 cases and deaths.
    - topkai22 6y ago
      Mea culpa, I had the <1 numbers of flu in my head as the <10 number- I shouldn't have said "as badly". However, those charts aren't great- as someone else noted comparing estimated flu numbers with confirmed COVID cases is problematic. In my local region, a randomized serology study suggested that we have at least 3x as many infections as confirmed cases, and a raw extrapolation of deaths to IFR rates suggests its even higher. It's best to say "the fatality rate is near the same order as the flu for school age children"
- Arete314159 6y ago
  Also, reports out of Florida are showing that 1/3 of the kids have lung damage on x-rays, even if they were 'asymptomatic.' It's not clear if that damage will be permanent. TL;DR - "doesn't kill you" might still maim you for life
  - standardUser 6y ago
    The bar for spreading fear-mongering like this should be considerably higher than some unknown "reports out of Florida".
    - jfk13 6y ago
      There have been plenty of reports if you'd like more specifics; e.g. - https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200622-the-long-term-effects-of-covid-19-infection https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200622-the-long-term-ef... - https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/coronavirus-long-term-effects https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/coronavirus-long-t... - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53269391 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53269391 - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/06/coronavirus-covid-19-mild-symptoms-who https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/06/corona...
      - standardUser 6y ago
        These are scattered media reports. “We don’t know yet if the encephalopathy is more severe with Covid-19 than with other viruses, but I can tell you we’ve been seeing quite a lot of it" That is probably the type of information we should be taking from these media reports. Given that there are over 14 million cases globally, we should be looking for patterns that impact tens of thousands, not edge cases that impact dozens or hundreds. With such a closely-studied and brand new disease, we are bound to find a lot of interesting and worrying cases. There are plenty of rare symptoms from other diseases too, we just don't talk about them much because they are not new and they are rare.
dragonwriter 6y ago
What is important from a public health standpoint isn't just the impact (which mortality rate is a small subset of) among the school aged but the propensity for propagation among a population and conditions like that found in schools (which, for.thr population side, isn't exclusively the school aged.)
thdrdt 6y ago
It's about the transmission. Since there is a lot of proof the current virus is airborne it helps to be in the open air or at least have a good ventilation system. Schools could beat the spreading of the virus with well ventilated classrooms. And for that matter: the US could beat the virus with good ventilated rooms. Note that dry air from airconditioners helps airosols to keep floating. Without fress air: wear a mask!

Can one seriously compare COVID-19 to a TB plague? Especially in context of schools where mortality rate for the school aged appears to be less than any seasonal flu on record.

jedberg 6y ago

> Especially in context of schools where mortality rate for the school aged appears to be less than any seasonal flu on record. There is no good data to back that up. Since we've been keep track, most kids have been staying home, away from other kids. Schools have been closed, playgrounds have been closed, and so on. There is a good chance it doesn't affect them as much, but it's not entirely clear since they haven't been socializing as much as adults. The data we do have says that COVID-19 is 3 times deadlier than the flu for kids 5-17, and 190 times deadlier for kids 0-4, but that's because the numbers are small: https://i.insider.com/5ef234caf34d051bc821d0d8?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp https://i.insider.com/5ef234caf34d051bc821d0d8?width=700&for... Also, lots of adults work in schools. 1/3 of teachers in the US are over 50.

SamReidHughes 6y ago
All kids live with adults, and they get high exposure to the virus when their family gets infected. From this we know that kids have a low mortality rate.
- gHosts 6y ago
  Conversely, their parents and grand parents get infected by the little plague carriers returning from the plague pit and general viral exchange facility that is school. And the grand parents and obese parents are vulnerable as all merry hell.
  - tomohawk 6y ago
    Nope. In Iceland, they did extensive testing, and genetic tracing of infections. Children infecting other children was extremely rare. In almost all cases, it was adults infecting them. There was only a SINGLE case of a child infecting an adult. https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/blog/hunting-down-covid-19/ https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/blog/hunting-down-covi...
    - pintxo 6y ago
      Could this simply be because schools were closed? If there is no child 2 child interaction, there cannot be an infection via this vector. Lockdown effectively places every family into its own bubble. Family members can only get infected by someone interaction with the outside world. If the kids stay home and only the adults interact with the outside world, than we would expect to see basically zero child 2 child infections.
      - phillipseamore 6y ago
        Schools and kindergartens were never closed in Iceland for children under 16.
    - mattigames 6y ago
      There is a study from South Korea that says kids from 10 and up can spread the virus just as well as adults. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/health/coronavirus-children-schools.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/heal...
- 2038AD 6y ago
  Has a statistical analysis been done or are you reasoning inductively?
topkai22 6y ago
No, at this point we can be pretty certain that this disease doesn't affect young children as badly as flu. Plenty of kids have tested positive for COVID19, but almost none have died. This disease is so pervasive we'd see excess showing up in that age group and we just don't. Kids just don't seem to get as sick as adults. What we don't know is how effective kids are as transmission vectors. If COVID19 spreads rapidly through a school and kids can get thier caretakers sick, thats a real problem. The limited data we have in suggests that not only do young kids not have limited disease, they also don't spread it easily, but all the data I've seen is almost anecdotal.
- tcbawo 6y ago
  The long term effects of flu are known. The long term effects of Covid-19 on any demographic are unknown. Polio killed less than 2000 people per year prior to the development of the vaccine, but impacted many more.
- jedberg 6y ago
  > No, at this point we can be pretty certain that this disease doesn't affect young children as badly as flu That's just straight up wrong. According to the CDC, as of June 23, COVID-19 was three times deadlier than the flu for kids 5-17, and 190 times deadlier for kids 0-4: https://i.insider.com/5ef234caf34d051bc821d0d8?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp https://i.insider.com/5ef234caf34d051bc821d0d8?width=700&for...
  - grandmczeb 6y ago
    That chart is extremely misleading. You can't compare estimated flu cases and deaths with confirmed COVID19 cases and deaths.
  - topkai22 6y ago
    Mea culpa, I had the <1 numbers of flu in my head as the <10 number- I shouldn't have said "as badly". However, those charts aren't great- as someone else noted comparing estimated flu numbers with confirmed COVID cases is problematic. In my local region, a randomized serology study suggested that we have at least 3x as many infections as confirmed cases, and a raw extrapolation of deaths to IFR rates suggests its even higher. It's best to say "the fatality rate is near the same order as the flu for school age children"
Arete314159 6y ago
Also, reports out of Florida are showing that 1/3 of the kids have lung damage on x-rays, even if they were 'asymptomatic.' It's not clear if that damage will be permanent. TL;DR - "doesn't kill you" might still maim you for life
- standardUser 6y ago
  The bar for spreading fear-mongering like this should be considerably higher than some unknown "reports out of Florida".
  - jfk13 6y ago
    There have been plenty of reports if you'd like more specifics; e.g. - https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200622-the-long-term-effects-of-covid-19-infection https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200622-the-long-term-ef... - https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/coronavirus-long-term-effects https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/coronavirus-long-t... - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53269391 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53269391 - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/06/coronavirus-covid-19-mild-symptoms-who https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/06/corona...
    - standardUser 6y ago
      These are scattered media reports. “We don’t know yet if the encephalopathy is more severe with Covid-19 than with other viruses, but I can tell you we’ve been seeing quite a lot of it" That is probably the type of information we should be taking from these media reports. Given that there are over 14 million cases globally, we should be looking for patterns that impact tens of thousands, not edge cases that impact dozens or hundreds. With such a closely-studied and brand new disease, we are bound to find a lot of interesting and worrying cases. There are plenty of rare symptoms from other diseases too, we just don't talk about them much because they are not new and they are rare.

dragonwriter 6y ago

What is important from a public health standpoint isn't just the impact (which mortality rate is a small subset of) among the school aged but the propensity for propagation among a population and conditions like that found in schools (which, for.thr population side, isn't exclusively the school aged.)

thdrdt 6y ago

It's about the transmission. Since there is a lot of proof the current virus is airborne it helps to be in the open air or at least have a good ventilation system. Schools could beat the spreading of the virus with well ventilated classrooms. And for that matter: the US could beat the virus with good ventilated rooms. Note that dry air from airconditioners helps airosols to keep floating. Without fress air: wear a mask!