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by Karunamon 2066 days ago
Because it's not all about the mortality rates. Just because the bug doesn't literally end your life doesn't mean you won't be left with long term (expensive) complications or handicaps, that could very well kill you years after you get over the virus.

Per the CDC [1]:

>Among patients with COVID-19, 76.8% had respiratory complications, including pneumonia (70.1%), respiratory failure (46.5%), and ARDS (9.3%). Nonrespiratory complications were frequent, including renal (39.6%), cardiovascular (13.1%), hematologic (6.2%), and neurologic complications (4.1%), as well as sepsis (24.9%) and bacteremia (4.7%); 24.1% of COVID-19 patients had complications involving three or more organ systems. Among COVID-19 patients, nine complications were more prevalent among racial and ethnic minority patients, including respiratory, neurologic, and renal complications, even after adjustment for age and underlying medical conditions.

This isn't the fucking flu, and at this point, it is intentionally dishonest to downplay the effects of the virus.

[1]:https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e3.htm#:~:text=....

3 comments

You're 100% right, "the fucking flu" still holds the record for people killed in a pandemic by a long shot.
There is no evidence that long term complications are worse than those from particularly nasty flu seasons. Nothing you posted says otherwise.
That’s hospitalized patients, which are a small fraction of all patients that get Covid.

And the CDC literally has a webpage that calls out all the similarities between the flu and COVID-19. Including the risk of long term complications from the flu.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/flu-vs-covid19.htm