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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThis coronavirus is unlike anything in our lifetime
In the meantime, not one public health expert I trust not one has said this flu comparison is valid or that were overdoing it. Every single one, from former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb to Harvard professor Ashish Jha, has said were not doing enough, that this is far more serious than it is being taken.
Heres why that is:
This is far deadlier than the flu.
The flu kills less than 1% of infected people who are over age 65. By comparison, in China, COVID-19 killed 8% of those infected who were 70-79 and almost 15% of those infected who were age 80 or older. Thats a staggering difference.
Even for younger people, the difference was striking. Flu killed .02% of infected patients age 18-49. Its 10 times that for COVID-19.
In other countries, such as South Korea, the death rate has been far lower.
But if 1 in 12 people age 70-79 who get the virus and 1 in 7 people age 80 or older who get the virus die, and the virus spreads to 20%, 40% or 70% of the population, were talking massive death tolls, the likes of which we have never seen before in our lives.
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/this-coronavirus-is-unlike-anything-in-our-lifetime-and-comparing-it-to-the-flu-is-dangerously-inaccurate/
Phoenix61
(17,019 posts)medicine being able to fix everything. The idea of a pandemic that kills millions is just incompressible. Look how long it took for people to realize HIV wasnt a gay disease. That people arent able to wrap their heads around this isnt surprising.
Walleye
(31,046 posts)greenjar_01
(6,477 posts)of flu in 2021, 2022, and 2023.
Folks who don't think in terms of systems or population dynamics are simply not getting it. The problem is the uncertainty about how this disease will affect our medical and economic systems. The flu is a more or less predictable public health problem now. We could probably reduce the death rate with more uptake of public health messaging, and a better (more affordable) health care system for earlier intervention in severe cases. Yes, fine. Public health professionals have been working on that for years,. but a predictable number will still die of flu each year.
Nobody can really predict how many people will die of CORVID-19 this year, or next, or next. That's the problem.
KentuckyWoman
(6,692 posts)I was little, but I was here.
I have a remembrance of the hysteria - and everything was already in short supply - even out in small farm east Kentucky country.