Wanted to clear the air cause there's lots of sensationalism going around in both directions. Here are the basics.
* YES, coronavirus hits most folk as nothing more than the flu and you'll get over it
* YES, coronavirus is far deadlier than the flu
* Hospitals getting overrun is the biggest fear
Those first two statements can both be true because the flu ain't very dangerous at all. Somewhere around 1 in 700 people who catch the flu die, and the vast majority are the elderly. The death rate is more like 1 in 5000 for folk aged 18-49 but again many of those had other issues going on. Every once in a while the flu takes some young healthy person and it's a complete shock, but 99,999 times out of 100,000 anyone 10-60 in good health who catches the flu will be fine.
We're still trying to understand coronavirus, but early results suggest that it may be 10x deadlier than the flu. That still means the vast majority of young healthy people will be fine. But the "rare cases" where a young healthy person dies or has serious complications are far more common than they are with the flu, and the danger to people in worse health is much more serious.
So the flu hits maybe 25 million folk a year, and of those maybe 35,000 die. What would happen if we did absolutely nothing in response to coronavirus, just let it spread, and it hit 25 million folk as well. That could mean we're talking possibly 300,000 deaths? Sure, 99% of folk would be fine, but that's a LOT of dead people.
Just as big an issue is that coronavirus affects your lungs in a way that flu doesn't, and compromises your ability to breathe. That means a lot of people are getting put on respirators, even if they're gonna recover. And you look at China, you look at Italy, you look at Iran, it's overwhelming their health care systems. China had to build entire new hospitals to treat coronavirus patients, Italy has patients spilling out into the hallways because the rooms are all full, Iran has people dying on the streets. There's only so many hospital beds, there's only so many respirators, when you have an epidemic wiping through and putting thousands of folk into intensive care on TOP of all the normal day-to-day shyt, things get overloaded fast.
I've heard that in parts of Italy the ambulance response times are over an hour. Think about how that affects not just coronavirus victims, but all the other shyt people get sick/hurt and die from. Everyone is put in danger.
That's why everything is getting shut down. They're trying to slow the spread of the disease to the point that the health care systems can continue to manage the victims. What they're afraid of is exponential spread that overwhelms the systems and causes a ton of folk to die that would otherwise make it.
* YES, coronavirus hits most folk as nothing more than the flu and you'll get over it
* YES, coronavirus is far deadlier than the flu
* Hospitals getting overrun is the biggest fear
Those first two statements can both be true because the flu ain't very dangerous at all. Somewhere around 1 in 700 people who catch the flu die, and the vast majority are the elderly. The death rate is more like 1 in 5000 for folk aged 18-49 but again many of those had other issues going on. Every once in a while the flu takes some young healthy person and it's a complete shock, but 99,999 times out of 100,000 anyone 10-60 in good health who catches the flu will be fine.
We're still trying to understand coronavirus, but early results suggest that it may be 10x deadlier than the flu. That still means the vast majority of young healthy people will be fine. But the "rare cases" where a young healthy person dies or has serious complications are far more common than they are with the flu, and the danger to people in worse health is much more serious.
So the flu hits maybe 25 million folk a year, and of those maybe 35,000 die. What would happen if we did absolutely nothing in response to coronavirus, just let it spread, and it hit 25 million folk as well. That could mean we're talking possibly 300,000 deaths? Sure, 99% of folk would be fine, but that's a LOT of dead people.
Just as big an issue is that coronavirus affects your lungs in a way that flu doesn't, and compromises your ability to breathe. That means a lot of people are getting put on respirators, even if they're gonna recover. And you look at China, you look at Italy, you look at Iran, it's overwhelming their health care systems. China had to build entire new hospitals to treat coronavirus patients, Italy has patients spilling out into the hallways because the rooms are all full, Iran has people dying on the streets. There's only so many hospital beds, there's only so many respirators, when you have an epidemic wiping through and putting thousands of folk into intensive care on TOP of all the normal day-to-day shyt, things get overloaded fast.
I've heard that in parts of Italy the ambulance response times are over an hour. Think about how that affects not just coronavirus victims, but all the other shyt people get sick/hurt and die from. Everyone is put in danger.
That's why everything is getting shut down. They're trying to slow the spread of the disease to the point that the health care systems can continue to manage the victims. What they're afraid of is exponential spread that overwhelms the systems and causes a ton of folk to die that would otherwise make it.
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