Two Elephants named COVID

[Taem]

That is highly discouraging. I guess I need to put a placeholder prefix on my posts stating, "I am not a medical physician, scientist, or politician. The extent of my knowledge is what I've read off the internet, and while I try to properly vet my links, I don't always succeed. In short, I may be wrong, so take my [opinion] with a pinch of skepticism."

[Lissa]

Ok, I'm gonna jump in on this as the sheer amount of mis-infomation that is being spread in the US, both from the President and others needs some clearing up. I've been in Lurk mode for quite a while, but one thing that I do know is what my agency has been doing is being very much covered up by Trump (I'm actually a gob'ment employee now, working for Health Resource and Services Administration which is a sub agency for HHS).

All the sub-agencies of HHS have been working on this since early January and Trump didn't want to hear anything from any of the agencies, including Azar himself that oversees all of HHS. While some of the sub-agencies screwed the pooch, *cough*CDC*cough*, NIAID and NIH have been really doing a lot of work (as can been seen by having Fauci doing everything he can try to counter Trump's lies).

Here's some facts:
Covid-19 has an infection rate of about 1.6. What this means is someone with Covid-19 will likely infect 1.6 people. To put that in perspective, chicken pox has an infection rate of 12 which means someone contagious with chicken pox will infect 12 people that aren't immune.
Covid-19 attacks the respiratory system and someone that ends up in intensive care has symptoms equivalent to pneumonia. It is this pneumonia like actions by the virus that is causing the deaths and it isn't just people with underlying conditions dying, perfectly healthy people are dying from it.
Covid-19 has a mortality rate between 0.5% and 1%, the Flu has a mortality rate of 0.1%
Covid-19 is showing signs of looking a lot like the Spanish Flu pandemic that hit the world back in 1918. The scary aspect is this, the Spanish Flu had an initial number of cases in the spring, but the worst was yet to come in the fall of 1918 where the majority of infections and deaths occurred.

[Taem]

Thank you so much for your response Lissa, it was thought provoking!

Covid-19 is showing signs of looking a lot like the Spanish Flu pandemic that hit the world back in 1918. The scary aspect is this, the Spanish Flu had an initial number of cases in the spring, but the worst was yet to come in the fall of 1918 where the majority of infections and deaths occurred.

Now that is a sobering and scary analogy to consider! I wonder if the Corona and Influenza viruses could act in a similar way inside the human body as to cause a repeat the Spanish flu pandemic? CNN has been reporting that Wuhan is expecting to get hit with a second wave with some stations jumping the gun and claiming Wuhan is seeing many more sick, however after more than a month of speculation and Wuhan opening back up for business, that just hasn't materialized yet. Let's all hope COVID-19 is dissimilar to the Spanish flu enough for us not to have a second wave. And thank you again for sharing!

[eppie]

Covid-19 is showing signs of looking a lot like the Spanish Flu pandemic that hit the world back in 1918. The scary aspect is this, the Spanish Flu had an initial number of cases in the spring, but the worst was yet to come in the fall of 1918 where the majority of infections and deaths occurred.

I think COVID19 is in much more ways different than the spanish flu.
The latter was especially hard on young men and had much less effects on the elderly.

COVID mainly kills people that are very old, chronically ill, obese or combinations of these (I say mainly because I know there are cases of seemingly healthy people who died).
COVID19 for this reasons has particularly hit the lower socioeconomic classes in the big towns because these have in general much unhealthier life styles.

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. And thank you again for sharing!

But luckily Donald Trump has found a cure.....we just have to inject ourselves with bleach.

[Taem]

The media is finally starting to relay information about their concerns of the lingering effects of COVID, essentially exactly what Lissa said. They are presenting three possible outcomes, but all three predict this is going to last till the middle of next year. I hear they (gov mouthpieces) are being overly cautious and coy on info release due to fear the population will react badly, like buying up all the toilet paper bad, but next level once they realize the country will be 1/2 way shut down till the middle of next year!

Having said that, it's clear Eppie was right, and we will have to make a choice here soon. The reality is, COVID is only slightly more deadly than influenza.... However is hundreds of times more contagious.... So if we open up the world, millions will die, but the economy will be saved. If we keep the economy closed, we will (potentially) lose millions to starvation, and the economy will be ruined taking many years to recover from. Both sound pretty terrible if you ask me. And if COVID does not mutate, things will hopefully return to normal by next year and this will be but a distant memory. Keep safe everyone. It's going to be a rough road ahead.

[eppie]

Having said that, it's clear Eppie was right, and we will have to make a choice here soon. The reality is, COVID is only slightly more deadly than influenza.... However is hundreds of times more contagious....

I'm not sure this is true. I think it is more deadly than a normal influenze (but not extremely more so) but regarding conatgiousness I understood there is not so much difference.

But if we compare to the last major pandemic (at least in the 'western world''): the spanish flu; I think there is a big difference in deadlyness. Corona kills mainly people (not all) that had underlying diseases and generally weaker people, while the spanish flu killed mainly young men (people think often a heavy immune response occured that than killed you).


Now for opinions: I hope the world will decrease travelling by plane, and that more and more people are allowed to work home part of their week. All these things could have a major beneficial impact on our climate.