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by balb0a 2236 days ago
I am just pointing this out because severe seasonal flu that appears in some years has reportingly ~0.1 fatality rate. Then my explanation would be that those two are comparable. Except covid spreads faster and therefore we see more death in shorter period?

Please poke holes in my theory:) I would like to se poking holes in my theory:)

2 comments

I'm on the edge of what I know here but. I think the flu is innately self limiting because the virus only infects cells in the respiratory system, and generally only the upper part. It tends to kill people who are frail.

Covid19 most of the time mimics the flu. But because the receptors it uses are wide spread in the body it can an does cause systemic illness. In particular I see more and more comments from doctors about clotting and vascular issues.

Consider strep. You have step throat. And then you have scarlet fever. Covid19 is similar, presents at a mild respiratory disease mostly, or as a serious one with pnumonia, or deadly systemic.

They are sort of comparable. Indeed, 0.1% IFR for seasonal flu is more of an upper bound. For example, Swine Flu that cause 2009 pandemic had infection fatality rate of 0.03% [0]. COVID-19 infection fatality rate is probably around 0.8% (0.5-1 95% Confidence Interval) [1]. So, COVID-19 upper bound would be 1% IFR.

So, COVID-19 appears at least 5 to 10 times more deadly than flu.

But we have vaccines for flu and susceptible population is maybe around 30%. For COVID-19 susceptible population appears to be at least 60% based on Bergamo, Italy, probably close to 100%.

[0] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8406723.stm

[1] https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*G6ql9WUz114Mdwktyp53Mg.pn...