Posted on 03/31/2020 9:20:40 PM PDT by Manly Warrior
Many were standing on the edge of a cliff and C-19 gave them a shove. Many people live years with medical problems that they eventually die from but C-19 kills them.
I have 2 cousins and several friends who are going through chemo and have a good prognosis but C-19 could easily kill them right now.
I should have been more precise. Was not asking about the Wuhan Flu. Was inquiring regarding the seasonal flu.
He explores the possible reasons why Italy has a death rate for COVID-19 that is 10X that of Germany.
Note the week where people were pointing out that none of the Nordic countries or Germany had any fatalities...which has since drastically changed. They also at that time had only two recoveries between the several nations.
Germany had fewer than 30k cases on 3/23, but is now crossing 72k.
H1N1 is an influenza. If the patient presents with classic flu symptoms, tests negative for Influenza A or B, then it is reasonable to toss them into the other novel or unidentified influenza category.
Well, not as much as you might think considering the age of some of us.
Since there is no treatment for mild CoV cases, lots of patients are sent home to self-isolate for 14 days without testing. They are either suspected or presumptive CoV positive. There is a fine distinction between the two. Presumptive gets counted as COVID-19, suspected does not.
[also anecdotally, I had a patient, a youngish woman, who came in either January or early February....she could not get off of oxygen for the longest time....tested negative for flu...had a harsh cough....I just wonder now if she actually had covid]
I disagree on several points.
There are at least 7 identified coronaviruses that infect humans. Four of them cause the common cold. I think it is premature to claim that no one has immunity to COVID-19.
In Washington state, only one person under age 40 has died from COVID-19. Less than 10% of COVID-19 infections in Washington state have been documented in people under age 40. When our Governor closed schools and universities a couple weeks ago, not even one student had been diagnosed with COVID-19.
COVID-19 emerged in Washington state on 21 January - the first case in the USA. The “Positive Infection Rate” in Washington state has held steady between 6.4% and 7.5% for high risk individuals for almost three weeks. Last week, hospitalization for COVID-19 in Washington state dropped 20%.
I think it is quite possible that COVID-19 has peaked in Washington state, and it will drift down to zero in concert with seasonal influenza at some point in May.
See the USC health system study published today in my post #13 above. They tested everyone coming to urgent care and ER during day shifts in early March, 2020 for influenza, a respiratory illness and Sars2. Then compared several years stats of influenza cases. They discovered a significant drop in flu cases corresponding to the spread of this novel corona virus. Very short article with fascinating graphs.
Here’s the connection. People are being more careful to avoid infection, and the flu is less contagious than SARS-COV-2. There’s no grand, all-encompassing conspiracy, and the Martians aren’t landing here...yet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic#Epidemiology
United States
Cases 189,445
Deaths 4,075
Recoveries 7,082
The common cold versions are in the alphacoronavirus genus. COVID-19 and SARS-Cov are betacoronaviruses. Someone would have had to have SARS or had a vaccine against that to already be immune to this one.
Almost a third of the cases in Missouri are under age 40.
Germans are germaphobes and might have slowed transmission from that too.
my medical test sources say flu season is basically over, hardly any positive tests.
and hardly any people with flu have covid and visa-versa.
they are mostly not conflating at this point in covid’s initial spread.
According to the pointy-headed intellectuals in Cambridge, Mass, that’s exactly what needs to happen. And will happen, if they have anything to do with it.
we don’t know R0 for covid yet.
and according to my sources the flu and covid are not conflating in infected patients.
Yes, not conflating. The symptoms are very different. COVID-19 is much more like a deadly super cold than the flu. On contagiousness, the flu is not spreading much now, while SARS-COV-2 is.
There were reasons for the levels of fear expressed by medical workers in countries hit before, but our leaders, early on, were afraid of causing panic by being blunt and open about all of it. Let’s give it our best, and show that we can be as courageous as our leaders and even more enduring. We’ll see more smiling faces sooner that way and get back to work and play.
Let’s make homemade masks the most popular style and smile at our neighbors with our eyes and cheerful tones of voice. Let’s show the world what we’re made of. :)
My best guess from watching it over the past couple of months, is that the seemingly slow spread is due to the extra cautions either during major outbreaks or cautions imposed earlier by governments. But whether or not, the spread is very persistent.
the flu season is basically over, that’s why it’s not a factor now. it was a relatively mild season and i guess the vaccines worked this time.
but don’t kid yourself. common flu is highly contagious. it could very easily be more contagious then covid in the final analysis.
and what i meant by conflation was that of people with respiratory infectious illness being tested (and there are a ton of different ones), people with covid are generally not testing positive for the flu and visa-versa. they seem to keep their “distance” from each other for some reason. why would be speculation.
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