https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-80-percent-cases...
We still don't really have the evidence in yet to know. At the moment we can fit the facts both to "everyone's in big trouble" and "it isn't that big a deal anywhere else". In some ways, the best possible news would be that it's been spreading in the US for weeks... and we didn't notice, because it's literally not noticeable because it's not that big a deal here. I'm not pitching that as "truth" at the moment, but it's on the table.
[1]: https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202002.0051/v1 - note this preprint disagrees with the "differential expression" theory; given it's "early days" I'm taking this merely as a data point, not proof yet. This could explain how it's a catastrophe in a high-pollution city and just "a cold" everywhere else. This scenario raises the interesting possibility that covid-19 could have started anywhere, and it simply wasn't noticed until it happened to get to Wuhan through normal mechanisms. What if "patient 0" turns out to be an asymptomatic business traveler from $NOT_CHINA? I'll call this a low-probability outcome, but what if we start widespread testing in the US only to discover that almost everyone already has it?
Second, the transmissibility of the SARS-nCov-2019 (the virus causing COVID-19) is much higher than the seasonal flu. This means the period within which a demand will be made on healthcare services will be much shorter and much more intense.
Third, there are reports showing lasting damage to kidney and lung tissue (sponge-like structures). Even when surviving COVID-19, previously healthy people might become chronically ill.
Fourth, in order to prevent at least part of what I am describing, very stringent measures are required. These already have a historic impact on our worldwide economy and will hit developed countries the most (since they require a worldwide infrastructure). It is very likely that the impact will become unprecedented as various continents are considering and implementing large-scale quarantine measures.
Concluding, comparing COVID-19 with the regular flu is both simplistic and dangerous. Prepare yourself and your loved ones for a bumpy ride.
These estimates are mostly from China. Obviously likely to be higher for a respiratory condition in a place with some of the worst air quality in the world. There is also some question about whether the less serious cases are even being identified -- if your sample is only of the people with severe symptoms, you get the wrong number for the percentage of people with severe symptoms.
> Second, the transmissibility of the SARS-nCov-2019 (the virus causing COVID-19) is much higher than the seasonal flu. This means the period within which a demand will be made on healthcare services will be much shorter and much more intense.
Fortunately flu season is coming to an end, so there will be less contention for resources there and the same reasons people get the flu less often in April than January will help to mitigate this.
> Third, there are reports showing lasting damage to kidney and lung tissue (sponge-like structures). Even when surviving COVID-19, previously healthy people might become chronically ill.
That can also be true of the flu, isn't it?
> Fourth, in order to prevent at least part of what I am describing, very stringent measures are required. These already have a historic impact on our worldwide economy and will hit developed countries the most (since they require a worldwide infrastructure).
This is probably just not going to happen. They'll try to contain it using strong measures when the number of cases is small enough that there is some hope of that actually happening, but strong measures aren't that problematic when they're only applied to a small number of people.
If they fail in the early stages and millions of people become infected, the strong measures can't be justified at a large scale because once it's that widespread they won't be effective anyway. The point of the strong measures is to prevent that from happening. They aren't worth continuing after you've already lost.
Your factor of under-representation of cases seems to cancel out the delayed onset of mortality at the moment.
The end of the flu season is incomparable with the demands on the health-care system due to COVID-19 since flu-demand is at least 1-2 orders of magnitude smaller. The advantage of the end of the flu season is that we can identify cases quicker.
W.r.t. lesions caused by COVID-19 comparable to the flu. Yes, both cause permanent damage. However, COVID-19 seems to attack more of the lungs and in general, both lungs, whereas influenza often is isolated to one lung. I am not a specialist, but I have read scary descriptions of COVID-19 lungs from specialists.
The stringent measures are already happening and the effects are already being felt. The stock market has responded by evaporating 4000 billion in value. Given the past lackadaisical response of government, it is likely we will see further effects either way: response or not.
If nothing is done and millions of people will get infected (think: 2 billion people) in a short amount of time (1 year), we will see widescale breakdown of services, global turmoil and panic. Hopefully, we will be able to slow the spread, develop a vaccine and 500 million people will get infected instead.
you can't say that and not point to a source.
https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736...
>case fatality ratio (CFR) is around 2%, which is 20x higher than the flu.
[Citation needed]
>This number is likely to rise when ICUs are becoming over-constrained and cannot take new patients. This is already happening in the north of Italy as we speak.
[Citation Needed] I can find citations for crowded hospitals in popular media, but nothing about the death rate increasing.
>Third, there are reports showing lasting damage to kidney and lung tissue (sponge-like structures). Even when surviving COVID-19, previously healthy people might become chronically ill.
[Major Citation Needed]
>very stringent measures are required
[Citation Needed]
That's probably why. There are 4 claims you've made that need to be backed up with facts.
The CFR is easy to find with a Google search. There are multiple studies currently providing strong lower and upper bounds on CFR.
My second statement has the word 'likely' in it. W.r.t. Italy, I am talking about an Italian media article describing over-constrained hospitals and the provisioning of military field hospitals.
Third statement has some evidence in other parts of the thread.
Fourth statement: many, many experts are warning that we are doing too little to late. The need for a response is logical given the high R0, CFR and needed hospitalization. If needed, I can provide some links, but going to my next meeting right now.
Otherwise, you need to put a sentence in there that all of these things are just your opinion.
And your response to me is just more hand-waving "i'm right i'm right" with zero content. You're still doing it.
We have, essentially, a hurricane off the coast (so to speak) and no one can say with certainty whether it will blow over or whether people are going to take a direct hit.
Like with storms, there’s the fear that hyping it up too much will lower trust in the future. However, not preparing people and then having the worst happen is many times worse.
This thing should absolutely be taken seriously. The responsible thing at this point is to prepare for worst and plan. The worst being an overwhelmed healthcare system because too many people require hospitalization all at once.
If the hurricane blows over, we’ll have stocked up our emergency kits that we, frankly, all should have had in the first place.
But we should really stop comparing this to the flu.
>%80
that's not how percentages are written, ever.