Fear-mongering, or reporting the facts? Plenty of people wouldn’t know about that aspect of the disease, I’m quite happy the media isn’t trying to cover it up.
For it to be informative, you need to provide the adequate context that explains it. "New evidence shows that coronavirus can cause long term breathing problems" suggests that this is something unique or unexpected about this, when it's really par for the course for any upper respiratory infection that takes a turn for the worse.
>> suggests that this is something unique or unexpected about this, when it's really par for the course for any upper respiratory infection that takes a turn for the worse.
I wonder why they report the number of deaths and infections. After all it's all known that viruses spread and people die from respiratory infections, right?
In many places the annual flu is more deadly. And all the articles about running out of space at morgues, etc. are common in winter in Europe.
We've had SARS and MERS before (MERS is way more deadly, yet we didn't enter a global panic). There is something specific about this panic, and it's not the virus; it's a variant of something we've seen before.
That the media played fear mongering is a given, that's what they always do; I suspect the new factor is social media, which has probably amplified that factor even more.
> We've had SARS and MERS before (MERS is way more deadly, yet we didn't enter a global panic). There is something specific about this panic, and it's not the virus; it's a variant of something we've seen before.
Can I suggest some basic reasoning as to why? Do you know which countries MERS spread to and how many people died as a result of MERS since it was first identified?
MERS was first identified in 2012. In 8 years, it has killed about 866 people worldwide.
SARS was first identified in 2002. In 2 years, it has killed 774 people and then disappeared.
SARS-Cov-2, the novel coronavirus, first appeared only 6 months ago in China. Since then, it has killed 100,000s.
How can you suggest that there isn’t more cause for concern over SARS-Cov-2, considering deaths are already at over 100x the other two viruses you mention in far less time, and that this death count comes despite an incredible, unprecedented international campaign to slow the virus?
Granted, this one is tougher, but not that much tougher than a bad strain of influenza.
Again, I'm not saying we shouldn't be doing anything. The catastrophe movie, Hollywood-like global mass hysteria was totally over the top and unwarranted, though.
We have ways to deal with epidemics that don't involve completely changing the rules, talking about "being at war" and so on.
>>Granted, this one is tougher, but not that much tougher than a bad strain of influenza.
Covid is more contagious and more deadly than what we had so far when both factors are considered. In Italy hospitals were pretty much overwhelmed this year due covid with the number of people dying and the sheer number of infections. Did that happen last year or the year before due influenta/flue season as well?
> In many places the annual flu is more deadly. And all the articles about running out of space at morgues, etc. are common in winter in Europe.
This is false and you are spreading misinformation. The estimated IFR you can calculate from e.g. the antibody test done in NYC is between 0.8 and 1.5% that's 10times higher than the flu. Moreover, the percentage of patients requiring intensive care is comparatively even higher (it really is not about the death rate primarily). Also please show some evidence for you assertion that morgues running out of space in Europe is common.
> We've had SARS and MERS before (MERS is way more deadly, yet we didn't enter a global panic). There is something specific about this panic, and it's not the virus; it's a variant of something we've seen before.
The reason why MERS and SARS did not cause this response is because they spread much slower. There are lots of diseases which are more deadly than covid19, the difference is how they spread. For example a disease that spreads through blood transfusions could have 99% fatility rate but would never be as dangerous to public health as covid 19 is.
> That the media played fear mongering is a given, that's what they always do; I suspect the new factor is social media, which has probably amplified that factor even more.
Actually the new thing is "experts" popping up all over social media talking about how everything is just overblown and we should not trust the real experts. This stories are pushed very clearly from political corners with a very specific agenda, it's all about discrediting science, evidence based decision making and our institutions (it all started with cigarettes then global warming and now covid19) . That's the irony all the conspiracy followers don't realise that they are part of the biggest misinformation campaign orchestrated by groups with very strong economic interests (you might even call them elites)
I said that it is more deadly in many places, and you're talking about a single place (NYC). Let me remind you that it's not actually the centre of the world.
And I think you're reading a bit too much into my post. I don't think I'm a conspiracy theorist or whatever (and may I suggest you take your condescending tone and shove it deep down where the Coronavirus won't reach it?)
Now, I'm actually following the advice of scientists. I'm not more an "expert" than you are an "expert", of course, that is correct. I'm French, and our foremost (actual) expert on the issue, Professor Didier Raoult, whose advice I'm listening to, has been saying that it's just another respiratory disease epidemic, like we have regularly. He's not advising to do nothing; quite the opposite, for many years he's been asking the government to do more to fight seasonal flu. Now, the irony is that he finds himself in the camp of people urging the government to calm down a bit...
"FACT OF THE DAY. The number of deaths largely exceeds the seasonal average. Like emergency rooms, funeral services are overflowing"
This happens every other winter here, and it's generally worse in Italy due to their older population. It's bad, we need to manage those epidemics, but not start shooting a catastrophe movie every time that happens.
I am well aware that NYC is not the centre of the world. I'm European myself, so much for your assumptions.
The reason why I used NYC was because we have reasonably good data from the recent antibody tests which found about 20% population infection. Based on those numbers, the population of NYC and the dead we end up with an IFR of 0.8%-1.5% depending if we use confirmed deaths, suspected deaths or excess deaths (note the actual value would be higher because of the lag between infection and death).
Now for some non US numbers just have a look at the Euromono data https://euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/
You can see the excess death spike which is considerably (for some countries by a lot) larger than the flu epidemic from 2017. So in most countries in Europe it has been significantly more deadly than the flu.
And considering your comment on overflowing hospital, tell me when was the last time they were flying many flu patients per day from Paris hospitals to relief hospitals by helicopter. I know people living close to one and they had almost constant flight noise.
Didier Raoult definitely warrants some background reading
Cannot say much about Paris, but there was not a year, when NYC hospitals had to use refrigerator trailers to store the dead (from flu, for example), and just the death toll in 2 months reached yearly flu death rate in the whole US, from previous years.
There has been quite a lot of “It’s like the flu“ messaging, including here on HN. In that light, and considering people’s idea of the flu is often closer to the common cold than the actual flu, I do believe most people would be surprised to learn of chronic health issues persisting after even mild courses of COVID.
Straw man. No one thinks the media should "cover it up". However, It would be more responsible for the media to not present the public with so much obvious misinformation about the virus.
You've been making big assertions about “misinformation”, “fear-mongering”, etc. but you haven't provided any evidence or analysis supporting those claims. Since you're taking a position which is contrary to what medical experts are saying you really need to substantially back it up.
From the start of epidemic in Europe, all media (that i read or listened) constantly mentioned ~5 % fatality rate (based on case reports). While WHO report from 2020-02 already reported IFR estimations 0.3% - 1.0%.
The other poster already pointed out that there is a difference between CFR and IFR (and initially CFR was reported because we did not have good estimates of CFR) The IFR for the flu is 0.1% in the bad years, and we have estimates of the IFR which are more in line with 0.9 to 1.5% (based on the antibody tests in NYC for example). That's 10 times higher, I don't know about you, but an order of magnitude is pretty significant in my book.
Not only that, even common sense observations confirm at least 3 times higher fatality rate compared to the worst flu: Every years approx. 45000 people die from flu in US. Within 1.5 months since the surge number of deaths reached 80000. According to various estimates number of deaths in US will reach 150 thousands. So already, with all the precautions it is 3 times deadlier. Without precautions we'd have 2-3 times higher rate.
> The other poster already pointed out that there is a difference between CFR and IFR
I know the difference between CFR and IFR. But i doubt journalists who wrote about covid-19 fatality knew that, such details are too technical for mainstream media. The idea conveyed by media was simply 'most people would get it as there is no immunity, and there is ~5% fatality rate'.
In that time we already have order of magnitude lower IFR estimates from WHO (e.g. from covid-19 situation report 30).
> we have estimates of the IFR which are more in line with 0.9 to 1.5% (based on the antibody tests in NYC for example).
In different areas it seems to be different. NYC was hit particularly bad, so it is not a good idea to generalize data from that. In Heinsberg (Germany) study, the IFR is estimated to be 0.37, although Heinsberg was also hit hard.
> The IFR for the flu is 0.1% in the bad year ... That's 10 times higher, I don't know about you, but an order of magnitude is pretty significant in my book.
I did not compare covid-19 to flu. It is true that covid-19 is order of magnitue worse than seasonal flu. My point was that it is order of magnitude better than media image of covid-19.
The articles I’ve seen talking about this usually explain that other severe illnesses can cause such symptoms.
The unusual thing about the coronavirus is that it causes severe illness in so many - resulting in not only an extraordinary number of deaths but also of other damage to the body.