Posted on 03/24/2020 7:30:01 AM PDT by Hojczyk
Many people have sought to compare coronavirus to seasonal flu, but without the hard stats.
In fact, the statistics are a moving target. For one, people can get flu year round, but peak flu season is over, according to CDC. Coronavirus has not yet peaked in the U.S., says CDC. Since coronavirus is an unknown entity, its numbers could theoretically overtake those of flu. Also, coronavirus is likely far more prevalent than implied by official case counts based on positive tests, since many people are not getting tested for coronavirus.
Scientists say there are many similarities between flu and coronavirus (see chart below), but one difference is a longer possible incubation period for coronavirus. Another involves severe respiratory symptoms. They can come from both flu and coronavirus, but are believed to be more common with coronavirus.
In any event, considering the high toll the flu takes on American society each year, I asked CDC why there is no similar response and preventive campaign, such as quarantines. The question and answer are below:
Sharyl Attkisson: Why do we not take these measures each year for flu to prevent all of those deaths?
CDC: This is a novel virus and there is much more to learn about transmissibility, severity, and other features associated with COVID-19. Unlike influenza, there is no vaccine to protect against COVID-19 and no medications approved to treat it. And there’s essentially no immunity against this virus in the population because it’s a new virus. Mortality for COIVD-19 also appears higher than for influenza, especially seasonal flu – so it’s important that everyone do their part to help respond to this emerging public health threat.
With all of that in mind, here are the numbers as of Sunday, March 22:
US Deaths
Coronavirus: 417* Flu Season 2019-2020: 23,000**
(Excerpt) Read more at sharylattkisson.com ...
Real news from a real reporter.
My greater fear is not of the seasonal flu or ChiCom flu, but of an raised awareness of the seasonal flu's mortality figures (nothing against Attkisson and people reporting facts) and we relive this mess every few years. Each time we will lose more freedom and liberty.
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How dare you try to calm peoples fear with real facts. W3e are doing everything we can to whip people into a panicked frenzy afraid the world will end by sunset. Just Stop It, Ok we need the American people to be scared so they allow us to Implement our Socialist Utopian Dreams into Law.
Hmmm, Internet Explorer... Chrome shows the page correctly.
Waiting another week to see how it shakes out, but so far I fail to see why this is an actual crisis.
Some guy was taking bets on here yesterday or the day before that the rate would get up to 2000/day within a week.
Did anyone else see that post? Asking for a friend.
Just a point. Traditionally “Flu Season” ends March 15th. Why? Because you have to give the vaccine to protect the patient up until March 15. The last week of October or First Week of November. It has nothing to do with when the flu season actually “ends”.
Comparing deaths as a function of entire population is completely misleading, for a number of reasons.
First of all, most people are immune to the circulating flu viruses. Flu viruses mutate rapidly; if I recall correctly, it takes about seven years for any given flu virus to mutate to the extent that the immune system no longer recognizes it. Thus, only a small fraction of the population is even susceptible to the flu.
The Covid-19, on the other hand, is spreading in an environment where no one has immunity. Thus, the upper limit of who can become infected is everyone.
Second, deaths due to a disease are determined by the number of people who got the disease. For example, there may only be 1 or 2 cases of rabies per year in the US, but it is always fatal. (I am not counting the experimental protocol that has saved a few lives.) Thus, the fatality rate is counted as 100%, not as 0.0000006%. And the current fatality rate of Covid-19 is 4.4% now.
It is the high death rate, ease of transmission, and lack of an immune population that has the government so worried. The low death rate as a function of population size right now is not a reason to forego any kind of infection control measure. It is to prevent tens of millions of illnesses and millions of deaths that the government has implemented the current rules limiting people’s exposure to each other.
If I could transport you to a NYC ER right now it would take you two seconds to realize this is a crisis.
I think the CDC panicked they new about this in January and looks like they were asleep til March..
Thank you. It is important to help people understand what is happening.
The big question is: did those people who died from the influenza virus get flu shots?
It would be interesting to know if those who have recovered from Corona virus had flu shots - which may have boosted their immune systems.
I seem to remember a shortage of Flu shots this year.
In another week likely we’ll see a crisis substantially averted across the country, but NY and CA really hard hit. The problem with statistics is the only number that is definite is the number of deaths. Number diagnosed can increase dramatically simply because of more testing available. What seems to not be tracked publicly is the number of hospitalizations - that would be a useful number as so many cases are mild and not tracked in any way, so the “denominator” is meaningless. What does seem to have meaning is the time to death from diagnosis - which can be a long time. Thus the number of deaths today may have meaning if compared to the number of reported cases a week or two ago - and that fraction is a very bad sign - but not as bad as it was in Italy (if taking the country as a whole - NY is different, one chart I saw shows a steeper climb in NY than in the worst case area of Italy).
Rural America should be fine. Big cities - big problem.
Well, that may be true, it may not be true...I’ve seen nothing in the MSM about real facts on the ground...a lot of social media type BS...I’m sure ABC/NBC/CNN/MSNBC would be camped out in the ER every day reporting the dire conditions if it was as widespread as some here would have us think. That’s not to say there aren’t pockets of density with high numbers...hence the hospital ships and alternate care sites that will be put in place so all the COVID patients can go there and free up hospitals to do the day to day things they do.
I’ve been saying this from the beginning. It us a new kind of flu, and something the media has turned unto a global plague. If Covid is a global plague, then from the factual numbers, what would you call the flu, a virus that has already killed far more EVERY year! Yes it is dangerous, but the political cure for it is becoming more dangerous.
I read somewhere, that the flu shot made one more susceptible to the WuVirus
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