What is the epidemiological difference between this virus and any other common cold virus?
It is at least as contagious as the common cold, but much deadlier.
A better comparison is the flu.
Flu is less contagious (R naught of around 1.5, vs Corona at 2.5+).
The flu is also less deadly for those who contract it, coming in at 0.1% mortality vs 1-3% for corona.
It is a significant and substantial difference.
Just be happy that it has not infected 60+ mil as the flu does every year.
Reason:
—No vaccine
—No proven cure
—Ten to twenty times the fatality rate
—No herd immunity
—Unstopped, 60% infection, 15% severe hospitalization rate with a third of those requiring ventilators
—While most who will die are elderly, several hospitalization is required for all age groups
—Aerosol
—Highly contagious in air and on a variety of surfaces
—Public officials are lying about several of these, causing overconfidence among young people
—This destroyed the supply chain in China which nowadays is so critical to the world economy
and lots lots more...
Not much difference.
Both viruses belong to the corona family.
Both have very low mortality rates for healthy adults.
Both have no real cure, only symptom suppressors available.
Both are extremely contagious.
Both require the same precautions (no hand shakes, wash hands)
A remedy is unlikely during your lifetime.
"What is the epidemiological difference between this virus and any other common cold virus?"
I think an Italian doctor described the epidemiological difference very well (this is from the snopes site only because I’m doing down and dirty searching)
So, you can believe a foreign doctor, if you don’t believe the US system, or you can believe Panda Propaganda that it’s just nothing
“Now, tell me which flu virus causes such a rapid tragedy. Because that’s the difference (now I’m going down a bit in the technical field): in the classical flu, apart from infecting much less population over several months, cases can be complicated less frequently, only when the VIRUS destroying the protective barriers of the Our respiratory tract allows BACTERIA normally resident in the upper tract to invade the bronchi and lungs, causing more serious cases. Covid 19 causes a banal influence in many young people, but in many elderly people (and not only) a real SARS because it arrives directly in the alveoli of the lungs and infects them making them unable to perform their function.”
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/italy-doctor-corona-not-flu/
I'm not sure of ALL...but this virus targets the lower respiratory system. Cold viruses (rhinovirus etc) target the upper respiratory system.