How Serious Do You Think COVID-19 is Compared to the Flu?

Post Reply New Topic

I think if lockdowns continue for the next several months, there won't be a recession, there will be a depression that will likely be much worse than the Great Depression. At least 7 million people died during the Great Depression.

Great, that's more worrying than this stupid virus. What are we doing all this for then, if millions of people are going to die after this anyway?

I couldn't find the number of people who died during the Great Depression to compare it to the number of people that would die in such a timespan without any crises.
Care to share some sources?

@Joe90 Don't panic about that. I'm sure they will put strategies / safeguards in place to protect citizens once the worst of this crisis is over. Take it a step at a time.

Doing it for 15 days was an extreme but fairly resonable precaution. But if I can see the enormous pitfalls in trying to keep everything shut down for months, then those calling the shots should be able to.

I simply googled "how many died during the great depression?" And that is what came up. Looking further I see that figure is under debate. I should have said according to what I saw, 7 million people died.

Well if lots of us are going to die anyway then why don't they just give us our freedom back? What's the difference between dying from a world recession and dying from a virus?

I am heading for a nervous breakdown. I hope the world comes together to nuke China after this. f*****g diseased place putting the whole world in danger. And this ain't the first time they've started a disease either.

I really shouldn't be on the internet reading all this s**t that is just scaring me even more. But it's my only contact to the outside world.

Hang in there. Tough, but I feel as if the world's been placed on hold until the next available operator is ready. It's affecting my ability to make progress too because the publisher said the submission of my sample chapters for my MS is also on hold for now and I must wait a bit.

Don't brood too much.. There are plenty of uplifting videos etc to watch online e.g clips of dogs and cats. I've downloaded a lot of old favourite comedy shows, movie clips and quiz programmes.

Yes, the way China handled the folk who tried to warn them, and tried to silence them is not smart at all.

I'll leave this here for your perusal, I posted it on the main thread too.

What the Next 18 Months Can Look Like, if Leaders Buy Us Time
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56

STRAIGHT from health workers preparing for, and responding to current pandemic:

Feeling confused as to why Coronavirus is a bigger deal than Seasonal flu? Here it is in a nutshell. I hope this helps. Feel free to share this to others who don’t understand...

It has to do with RNA sequencing.... i.e., genetics.

Seasonal flu is an “all human virus”. The DNA/RNA chains that make up the virus are recognized by the human immune system. This means that your body has some immunity to it before it comes around each year... you get immunity two ways...through exposure to a virus, or by getting a flu shot.

Novel viruses, come from animals.... the WHO tracks novel viruses in animals, (sometimes for years watching for mutations). Usually these viruses only transfer from animal to animal (pigs in the case of H1N1) (birds in the case of the Spanish flu). But once, one of these animal viruses mutates, and starts to transfer from animals to humans... then it’s a problem, Why? Because we have no natural or acquired immunity.. the RNA sequencing of the genes inside the virus isn’t human, and the human immune system doesn’t recognize it so, we can’t fight it off.

Now.... sometimes, the mutation only allows transfer from animal to human, for years it’s only transmission is from an infected animal to a human before it finally mutates so that it can now transfer human to human... once that happens..we have a new contagion phase. And depending on the fashion of this new mutation, thats what decides how contagious, or how deadly it’s gonna be..

H1N1 was deadly....but it did not mutate in a way that was as deadly as the Spanish flu. It’s RNA was slower to mutate and it attacked its host differently, too.

Fast forward.

Now, here comes this Coronavirus... it existed in animals only, for nobody knows how long...but one day, at an animal market, in Wuhan China, in December 2019, it mutated and made the jump from animal to people. At first, only animals could give it to a person... But here is the scary part.... in just TWO WEEKS it mutated again and gained the ability to jump from human to human. Scientists call this quick ability, “slippery”

This Coronavirus, not being in any form a “human” virus (whereas we would all have some natural or acquired immunity). Took off like a rocket. And this was because, Humans have no known immunity...doctors have no known medicines for it.

And it just so happens that this particular mutated animal virus, changed itself in such a way the way that it causes great damage to human lungs..

That’s why Coronavirus is different from seasonal flu, or H1N1 or any other type of influenza.... this one is slippery AF. And it’s a lung eater...And, it’s already mutated AGAIN, so that we now have two strains to deal with, strain s, and strain L....which makes it twice as hard to develop a vaccine.

We really have no tools in our shed, with this. History has shown that fast and immediate closings of public places has helped in the past pandemics. Philadelphia and Baltimore were reluctant to close events in 1918 and they were the hardest hit in the US during the Spanish Flu.

Factoid: Henry VIII stayed in his room and allowed no one near him, till the Black Plague passed...(honestly...I understand him so much better now). Just like us, he had no tools in his shed, except social isolation...

And let me end by saying....right now it’s hitting older folks harder... but this genome is so slippery...if it mutates again (and it will). Who is to say, what it will do next.

Be smart folks... acting like you’re unafraid is so not sexy right now.

On a case-by-case basis it seems worse.
The flu has certainly killed more and infected more, but it's also had much longer to do so.

I was pretty nervous about it. But actually the more I study it the less nervous I get. We always get more nervous over what we don't know. Usually things are not anywhere close to being as bad as I have worried and things work out alright. I saw a quote once that said something like "life is 10% of what happens and 90% of how I react to it". I think with the whole world being in the same situation, it will probably balance the equation as far as the economy goes. Rather than if it was just happening here or the UK.

Well I was saying annually. And annually meaning annual flu season. Especially flu season at its peak. Which is Jan-Feb from what I read. I think with covid-19 there are a lot of unreported cases because either it is asymptomatic or mild enough that people don't see a doctor. So I think the official number is probably a lot lower than it should be because of that. And if that is the case then it is not as deadly as it looks when comparing the number of known cases to the number of deaths to get a percentage. Maybe it is really more like 5 million cases vs 20,000 deaths rather than 1/2 million cases vs 20,000 deaths.

I don't disagree with the idea that we really don't know the extent of this at the moment which makes it hard to generate accurate statistics. That said, some places have a much better understanding of how the outbreak looks in their country due to higher rates of testing.

That thing about undiagnosed/unreported mild cases would be true of influenza as well though. Someone who develops a mild cold, whether it's this corona strain or an influenza strain or one of the other handful of things that cause colds probably won't look into what caused it. The difference is that a person who passes that corona virus strain on seems to be more likely to cause severe issues for at least a portion of those infected (even if it's only 5 or 10x instead of 30x).

There's a possibility I might have it. I haven't pursued testing but I've got a pneumonia, muscle cramps and a fever. I don't have the energy to go to the hospital, even though obviously cost isn't the issue. I don't want to make anyone share a car with me to get me there, so it's easier to just stay home and watch videos/clean my room.

Feel free to include me in a death pool.

I get Flu shots every year to help my immunity. I'll feel better when a safe effective anti-virus is developed to help my immune system.

How long have you had symptoms, and what's your temperature?