Why is COVID-19 worse than past viruses?

Penn State University ^ | 04.02.2020 | Larry55

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Democrat and media instigated fear has caused this to be far worse than it would have been.

[rockinqsranch]

“...corrupt media induced panic and TDS.”

Precisely

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

She sure did. She was spot on.

[rockinqsranch]

Exactly.

[motor_racer]

It is being used to create legal precedent for suspending the Constitution. It is being done incrementally by a popular President in good faith, and generally accepted as necessary by the people. But next time, it will be full “boot on necks”, Roman Legion martial law, and the Democrats in power at that time will cite these times as precedent.

[1Old Pro]

I think the biggest difference is that Trump wasn’t President then and is now.

[DannyTN]

1. The current world case mortality rate is > 5%. The US CMR is now >2%. Flu is 0.1%. Some will argue that there might be a lot of cases we don't know about, that would bring that number down some. But it's clearly more deadly that the flu. It's just not as widespread as the flu, yet.
2. It's more infectious than the flu. the flu has a R0 factor of 1.25. Every person that gets it spreads it 2 1.25 more people. CV is believed to have an R0 of 2-3%. The R0 factor is not intrinsic to the virus. We can lower it by social distancing.
3. No immunity. A lot of us have some immunity to the flu. We've had it before. And many of us got flu vaccines. That immunity slows the spread of the flu through the community. Nobody is believed to have immunity to CV. That means the virus will spread through the population infecting far more people than the flu does.
4. No summer break. We're still hoping the virus slows down in summer, but the viral spread in countries that are already having 80 and 90 degree whether cast's a whole lot of doubt on this.
5. Liklihood it will overwhelm our hospital systems. All of the factors above indicate it will overwhelm our hospital systems, exceeding the supply of ICU beds and ventilators, unless we take action to mitigate it's spread.
6. Slow recovery time. Severe cases are ending up on ventilators 20 to 30 days. We're hopeful that treatments can be found that will reduce that. But until we find that treatment, it means patients will be in the hospital longer, taking up beds far longer than a flu patient. <\Ol>

   We've already seen it overwhelm hospital systems in China, Italy, and Spain. When that happens horrible choices have to be made. Italy and Spain have both chosen to deny ventilators to people over 60, so that they can give them to younger people more likely to survive.

[1Old Pro]

Good thing Trump is now friends with Rocket man, they’ve had no illness or deaths, perhaps they’ll share their secret.

[Secret Agent Man]

its worse because Trump

[ActresponsiblyinVA]

The US leads the world in fake news media.

[CottonBall]

“Fake statistics.”

I like that. Needs to be the new buzzword. Or phrase.

[wastoute]

“Novel”. That word is freighted with meaning.

[PGalt]

Thanks for posting. Good questions and good discussion. Lots of variables...from all the way down to contaminated spices used in the bat soup to dervishness in L4 labs with uneven programming sprinkled in compared to years past (super spreaders...flatten the curve). /some s

At least Greta’s clock is still ticking and it will relieve us from all of our anxieties.

[wastoute]

Create an about page. We know you are a piece of work but just what kind gift be interesting.

[tomkat]

That’s a .pdf link up top, in case anyone’s wondering why they’re not seeing anything when clicking.

[Amendment10]

You can be contagious with “stealth” COVID-19 and not even know you have it. That’s why people like Abbott Labs quickly developed 5-20 min. test.

Then the first wave of people who have spread the virus without knowing it get sick after incubation period and overwhelm hospital space. And when the people they passed the virus to, and likewise passed the virus to others, finally get sick, the latecomers cannot find hospital beds.

[KC_Lion]

(It’s not, but the panic sure as hell is. I am so old I remember the Great SARS epidemic of 2003)

[Yaelle]

It’s not whether this virus is worse. It’s arguably quite infectious and it appears no human on the planet has immunity to it. I believe the powers that be may think that instead of killing millions by just razing through the world, they will do this great quarantine and slow down the number of cases at once so as to help more people survive (due to access to Med care) than in the previous pandemics.

It will be a while to see if this works, but it’s promising for now.

[wastoute]

So many people with such strong opinions yet haven’t bothered to create an about page even though thy have been “freepers” for years.

[wastoute]

Here’s another one with no about page. What are you hiding?