Yeah, I stopped worrying a few weeks back after I saw the mortality rate. It's basically a highly virulent flu with the same risk factors. Not on the same level as sars and the like.
That's a pretty cavalier attitude even if we take your assumptions to be true.
If it's a virulent flu, the last time we had a pandemic with comparable stats was 1918, when we had much less global travel but much worse medical infrastructure. The 1918 Spanish flu infected potentially 1/4 of the world (500 million people at the time) and killed around 2% (variable depending on sources) of the global population - ~40 million.
It's on a different level than SARS/MARS, because this seems to incubate without symptoms in the young and healthy (for now) and then kill when it breaks out in populations of the old and sick. It's spreading faster and being reported differently than anything before.
Some basic advice that everyone should apply during every global outbreak they don't really understand:
- don't travel if you don't absolutely have to
- don't go to hospital unless you absolutely have to
- try to stop touching your face
- wash your hands and face frequently
It's a pandemic, definitely (source - me, I'm working on coronavirus). Don't panic but don't be complacent. Just look after yourself and your family and avoid exposure to potentially high risk.
Absolutely incomparable to the Spanish flu. Back then we knew literally nothing about the flu, we sent sick soldiers on public trains to hospitals which very quickly spread the virus to other sick/injured people. We took the exact opposite actions of what we now know is correct. We did everything wrong. It’s not even remotely comparable. Scientists learned about the corona virus category in the late 1960s, 40 years after the Spanish flu.
It’s also not spreading unlike anything before? You can look at the graphs of SARS/MERS/etc and see at times it’s spreading quicker, but not remotely in the realm of never before seen.
Good advice I suppose, but traveling is still fine according to the WHO.
My point about the Spanish flu was that this is a complex comparison. Statistically it's similar so far. But with very different social parameters (massively increased global travel, vastly better understanding of epidemiology). We are still doing so many things wrong, given what we know. I think it's comparable.
The public numbers are not the same as the ones on GISAID.
Mortality rate is 3.2% for COVID-19, 0.05% for the flu. That is a massive difference. That means that for every 100,000 people that get the coronvirus COVID-19, 3,200 will die vs 50 for the flu. Sars was a coronavirus just like COVID-19. While Sars did indeed have a higher mortality rate than COVID-19, far more people have died from COVID-19 to date than during the entirety of the SARS run.
Edited: as my math was wrong, I had 500 deaths for flu when as @vatueil pointed out, it should be 50
Out of coronavirus cases that have actually fully resolved (so the patient has either recovered or died) 9% of the cases have ended in death. In 22% of ongoing cases the patient is in critical condition. How in the fuck is that a "highly virulent flu with the same risk factors"? LOL
It is a highly virulent flu with the same risk factors and no vaccine for those that are at high risk. It may not be something to worry about, but I'd think we should do something to prepare.
Absolutely, but the news is causing a low level panic as they do report numbers, but don't emphasize what the numbers mean. I guess that's also the viewers fault as the math is grade school simple.
If it's a virulent flu, the last time we had a pandemic with comparable stats was 1918, when we had much less global travel but much worse medical infrastructure. The 1918 Spanish flu infected potentially 1/4 of the world (500 million people at the time) and killed around 2% (variable depending on sources) of the global population - ~40 million.
It's on a different level than SARS/MARS, because this seems to incubate without symptoms in the young and healthy (for now) and then kill when it breaks out in populations of the old and sick. It's spreading faster and being reported differently than anything before.
Some basic advice that everyone should apply during every global outbreak they don't really understand:
- don't travel if you don't absolutely have to
- don't go to hospital unless you absolutely have to
- try to stop touching your face
- wash your hands and face frequently
It's a pandemic, definitely (source - me, I'm working on coronavirus). Don't panic but don't be complacent. Just look after yourself and your family and avoid exposure to potentially high risk.