I wasn’t worried about the Corona Virus...

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Unfortunately, the large growth of the diseased means that the quarantine will last for more than one month. Many of my acquaintances now have most of their worries about finding a job. Because of the virus, many businesses are closing down. Unfortunately, there are not so many professions that would remain stable now.
Disagree. The virus exposed many already failing businesses like the ones you see on TV show restaurant impossible, and expedited the inevitable. This will allow other already successful businesses like Chick Fil A to further prosper.

I have a family member who had it, recovered and said they had been much sicker from the flu in past years.
 
Disagree. The virus exposed many already failing businesses like the ones you see on TV show restaurant impossible, and expedited the inevitable. This will allow other already successful businesses like Chick Fil A to further prosper.

I have a family member who had it, recovered and said they had been much sicker from the flu in past years.
I have had it, and was much sicker than I have ever been from the flu. My mother works on our local covid ward in the hospital, this is nothing like a flu. Not even remotely.
 
I have a family member who had it, recovered and said they had been much sicker from the flu in past years.
If only that were the case for everyone.

Even before you get to those who become seriously ill or sadly die, there are many who have it much worse than any flu they’ve ever had (as demonstrated by Lee who can sadly speak from experience) and some who still live with the effects of the virus long after they get better.
 
If only that were the case for everyone.

Even before you get to those who become seriously ill or sadly die, there are many who have it much worse than any flu they’ve ever had (as demonstrated by Lee who can sadly speak from experience) and some who still live with the effects of the virus long after they get better.

The aftermath is a whole different story, I am currently taking Beta blockers because covid has messed up the electrical signals to my heart and I now have an irregular heartbeat. Before covid I was fine, after covid I passed out every time I stood up. Potentially a medication for life now.
 
this is nothing like a flu. Not even remotely.
Perhaps for you, but this demonstrates symptoms definitely vary greatly! Most people recover at home.
Anyone working in a Covid Ward, obviously never sees all the people that easily recovered at home , I would fully expect that would be impactful.
 
Perhaps for you, but this demonstrates symptoms definitely vary greatly! Most people recover at home.
Anyone working in a Covid Ward, obviously never sees all the people that easily recovered at home , I would fully expect that would be impactful.
Not disputing that, im telling you that medically it is nothing close to similar to the flu. Regardless of recovery rates etc, this isn't something you want to take a chance with.
 
medically it is nothing close to similar to the flu. this isn't something you want to take a chance with.
I must have missed the post where someone said it was medically similar to the flu.
this isn't something you want to take a chance with.
Most people don't try to get sick. It just happens. When you play a slot machine, that is chance.
 
Almost like it's not worth comparing it to the flu.
Are we only supposed to hear feedback from people who had a bad experience? If someone says they've been sicker from the flu in the past,, that is that person's experience which cannot be discounted. I would assume a normal person would only be able to compare it to their own past experiences.
 
The flu is a good disease to compare COVID to because it is widely understood, yet also kills a lot of people very year worldwide. Understanding the impact of the flu helps to give context to the seriousness of COVID.

I was spending a lot of time fighting misinformation about COVID on one of my sites, so I did some research into the flu statistics here in Australia.

When the pandemic first started and we were all arguing about COVID vs the flu and the main argument was the large numbers of flu deaths - I just assumed that we saw huge numbers here in Australia too.

However, after recently looking into the statistics for flu deaths in Australia (rather than worldwide), I was surprised to find the figures so low.

2019 was our worst flu season on record with 310,000 people presenting to a health care facility with symptoms (apparently that was 7x our average!) and we had 900 flu linked deaths that year.

Normally we get these really bad flu years around once every ten years, but the 2017 flu season was particularly bad too (worldwide), causing hospitals to fill up with sick patients (my wife is a nurse at one of our largest hospitals here in Sydney and she remembers that flu season distinctly).

Apparently we saw 1,100 deaths related to flu in 2017 - but from only 251,150 confirmed cases (0.47% case fatality rate compared to 0.29% in 2019). These cases numbers are lab-confirmed numbers - not simply based on presentation.

Most years we have between 150 and 300 deaths from flu in Australia (much lower than most people assume) - so these years with around 1,000 deaths really are an anomaly.

For comparison with COVID - in the 7 months since we recorded our first COVID death, we have recorded a total of 898 deaths in Australia - and we still have 239 active cases with 32 in hospital, so we could still see that number to rise. That's also a 3.29% case fatality rate, which is a lot higher than the 0.47% for the flu. If we hadn't implemented strict lockdowns and saw infection rates similar to other similar countries - we would be expecting in excess of 10,000 COVID deaths in Australia so far (population around 25 million).

Of course, the great irony is that 2020's flu season in Australia has been one of our best ever because of the measures we have taken to control COVID! So far we've seen only 21,187 cases and 36 deaths with a case fatality rate of 0.17%

Let me summarise the flu vs COVID numbers for comparison:
  • 2017 was 0.47% case fatality rate from flu
  • 2019 was 0.29% case fatality rate from flu
  • 2020 was 0.17% case fatality rate from flu
  • 2020 we're currently at 3.29% case fatality rate from COVID-19
The numbers show quite clearly just how serious COVID is.
 
Just to follow on from my previous post - I was finding myself fighting a lot of mis-information about the status of various countries in comparison to Australia - I was putting together stats tables and charts by hand, which was time consuming.

So I built a little website that pulled in raw data from JHU and generated the reports and charts that I wanted to show.


It's a bit rough around the edges - but it does what I need. Perhaps someone else might find it useful too?

Some examples:

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Let me summarise the flu vs COVID numbers for comparison:
  • 2017 was 0.47% case fatality rate from flu
  • 2019 was 0.29% case fatality rate from flu
  • 2020 was 0.17% case fatality rate from flu
  • 2020 we're currently at 3.29% case fatality rate from COVID-19
The numbers show quite clearly just how serious COVID is.
Something these figures don't capture is the hospitalization rate. The Flu hospitalization rate are a fraction of COVID-19.

And worse, COVID-19 hospitalization duration is something else. +2 weeks on average for a survivor!
 
The Flu hospitalization rate are a fraction of COVID-19.
I would speculate that the hospitalization rate for COVID-19 is much longer and higher because it's a novel virus without a vaccination. That said, one could be an asymptomatic dumbass and become a superspreader; therefore, it's best to quarantine them. On the other hand, when one has the flu, they just stay home because, well, they are a lot sicker than had they had COVID in more cases.
 
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