Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus

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I don't think viruses can be defeated. If they could there would not have been 35 million cases of the flu in the US last year. That ranges anywhere from 9 million to 45 million. And the year it was at its lowest was not a result of extensive measures used to contain it, that's just the way it played out on its own.

Gotta protect the toilet paper.

The H1N1 pandemic started in April 2009. Just as the total flu cases in a season can range from 9 million to 68 million, the time cases hit their peak can range from November to April. There is no constant to go by. The only thing that can be gone by to some degree is what have been the most prolific cases of exponential growth of other viruses. In order for COVID19 to catch up to the worst cases of viruses in the US, it will have to get to 68 million cases (H1N1) and 61,000 deaths (2018 flu). But I am not sure even those are the worst cases numbers wise. They are just the worst cases number wise going back to 2009. Maybe in say 1973 there were 99 million cases of the flu and 150,000 deaths.

Edit: I see there was a flu pandemic in 1968 that had a death toll of 1 million.

I'm noticing that 95% mild vs 5% serious or critical has been a constant for a long time.

However the recovered / discharged percentage has gotten higher at 80% while the number of deaths percentage has gotten smaller at 20%. Hopefully that trend will continue.

The figures that you quote are the most recently popular estimates for the effects of coronavirus combined with/plus panic. They are also already out of date even for the panic-driven results, as the latest research presented in The Lancet states that the probable death rate ( still with a relatively low estimate of unidentified cases ), is 0.66% of cases. Hospitalisation rates are lower than expected too, and only 5% of cases severe/critical, hence the reports of empty areas in hospitals and the staff waiting for the "wave" that hasn't turned up, which I referred to and provided links to in my previous post.

There are hotspots, clusters centred on care homes or in areas with higher than average air pollution, as in Northern Italy, the Lombardy region, where figures are worse because of environmental factors, not the virus.

The current estimates for numbers of unidentified cases range between 5 and 30 times the number identified. That means that any death rate based on confirmed cases must be divided by at least 5 and perhaps by as much as 30. For example the widely quoted 2% that you refer to would equate to a real death rate of 0.2%, if the number of unidentified infected was actually 10 times that of the tested and positive.

And even that figure would still include the effects of panic, ( the unusually large numbers of health workers off on leave/self-isolating for unusually long periods, the extra stress caused by perceived need for protective equipment and not having enough of it, the unusually aggressive medical methods being used like intubation of lungs which causes lung damage, the isolation from friends and family which is also known to increase morbidity, and the nocibo effect of fear itself in already ill/frail and older people who test positive for a virus that is described as "deadly".

There are currently nearly no figures for the effects of this virus which do not include the effects of panic. In Sweden perhaps.

This virus might have spread unremarked, unnoticed, unnamed even, just another one of the lesser coronaviruses, another respiratory illness, if China had not panicked because it was first noticed in the midst of a particularly bad outbreak of respiratory disease in Wuhan, ( where air pollution , already among the worst in China was so bad last autumn that it had triggered protests from even its citizens ), where China's one and only level 4 disease research laboratories are located, and it's possible that the government feared an accidental leak/escape had occurred, of a potentially dreadful strain.

If it had spread unnoticed, unnamed, just one of many respiratory disease viruses, like the rhino viruses or influenza or most other coronaviruses do, it might have been significantly, substantially less of a problem. As it is health services have been struggling with not just the illness itself but the panic fuelled self-isolating staff shortages, stressful protective equipment and medical intervention protocols, and the seriously debilitating effects of fear on patients' natural levels of resilience.

The lock down measures may actually cause more deaths than the virus ever would.

NB. The death rate numbers are also extremely unreliable in another way, in that in several countries, most notably Italy, they include all deaths of anyone that tested positive for the coronavirus, whether the virus caused their death or not.

PS. Imagine if the media paid as much attention to flu, the pictures of the dead, the videos of people in hospital with it, the unexpectedly young as well as the expectedly old and already ill/frail, the daily reports on the number of cases and the health workers crying over the dead child, etc, and imposed the same levels of protective equipment, plus isolation, on flu victims and their carers. It's as if our society has forgotten about other illnesses which cause death every day in huge numbers.

Last edited by ouinon2 on 02 Apr 2020, 12:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

Country singer Kalie Shorr tests positive for coronavirus

https://nypost.com/2020/03/31/country-singer-kalie-shorr-tests-positive-for-coronavirus/

... “Despite being quarantined (except for a handful of trips for groceries) for three weeks, I managed to contract COVID 19,” stated Shorr. “I’m feeling significantly better, but it’s proof how dangerous and contagious this is. It’s endlessly frustrating to see people not taking this seriously.” ...

Fingers, guys, fingers. This virus propagates through people's fingers. And that is why you need a face mask (and a hand sanitizer) when you go shopping.

A birthday party dispersed in Los Angeles.



Throughout this pandemic, the only shortage that we have is a shortage of brains.

Someone easily catching an illness is not proof that it is dangerous. Contagious yes, like the common cold or flu, but would she say that catching flu was proof of how dangerous it is?

Are you calling me a camel?
I've been called much worse.



I, on the other hand, am an expert in guessing/hypothesising/speculating.

You betcha.

I think, as a public person, she was not talking about herself. She was thinking about other people. Some people live with their mothers or grandmothers. I think that was what she was referring to. That's the sad part about this virus. People have no clue how this virus propagates. So, to her, this virus is dangerous, because people can get infected so easily, and then take the virus home to infect other people at home. And it would happen all without your knowledge. I think the "danger" does not refer to the virus killing you. The danger is referring to how sneaky this virus is.

(Sometimes I think I can function in the neurotypical world pretty well, ha ha.)

Last edited by eikonabridge on 02 Apr 2020, 1:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

Classical botanical nomenclature (develop by Carl Linnaeus) doesn't work that well with bacteria and viruses. Microbiologists have been moving toward a genetic nomenclature since the 1980s. So for viruses you need to first subdivide them by RNA and DNA viruses

The same thing would then apply to flu, which also kills the older ill/frail and vulnerable , but would she say that about flu? She says it about this virus as of it is something special, as if she has not thought like this about an infectious illness before now. That is what I mean about the panic.

Not to bring politics into it but I wonder if they would have done that to a white birthday party. I suspect not.

I'm glad my birthday was a few weeks ago, before the lockdown! My niece's was just in time, on the 17th. No more family birthdays until June.

I hope they pay for what they have done.

It isn't just pro-china propaganda influencing naive segments of societies.
The chinese have *bought* a lot acceptance from those who have a vested interest in china's dominance.
WHO is extremely dependant on finance from china, I understand, and this causes an obviously biased and self-interested view of the world, heavily corrupted by politics.



We have a problem with backpackers, who, I believe, are predominantly caucasian.
They are cracking down on them, in OZ.
Hoowa!