Corona Virus - as of 4 feb

Is it? Just because more people currently die from it, doesn't make it more dangerous, just more prevalent. Plutonium is more dangerous than the flu, but a whole lot less people die from it. Things like mortality rate and how fast it spreads are important characteristics of a virus.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html
CDC estimates that influenza has resulted in between 9 million – 45 million illnesses, between 140,000 – 810,000 hospitalizations and between 12,000 – 61,000 deaths annually since 2010.

If I normalize to 100000. It's about 133 deaths per 100000 illnesses over a 10 year period.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/world/asia/coronavirus-china.html says
At least 490 people in China have died from the coronavirus, officials said on Wednesday, and the number of confirmed cases of infection rose to 24,324, up from 425 deaths and 20,438 confirmed cases the day before.

This normalizes to about 2000 deaths per 100000 illnesses over a much shorter period, so much more deadly.

If I had to chose between the flu and the coronavirus, you know which one I'm picking and it's not the flu.

This is why it's so important and also why it's getting the attention it is. This would indicated that those in the know likely know a little more than you and me. I have a friend whose family goes to the Philippines for a family reunion every year. Two of the siblings are doctors and they cancelled their trip because of the coronavirus. Personally, I think a little like you with a statistical twist. If it's only a few hundred what's the odds of me getting it. It's almost like hitting the lottery. It's important to take this seriously and put this thing down as fast as possible, so that it doesn't become more prevalent than the flu with a lot more deaths. The bubonic started out only killing a few people when it first started and we know how that ended.

 

I don’t know why, whenever we have a new virus epidemic, that somebody always comes around and says “common flu virus is more deadly”. This statement sounds so profound and the journalist can bask in recognition of some new “perspective” that he discovered. In truth it is completely irrelevant to the discussion. Like, what is the point? Do we say “oh yeah, they are right. The flu never got me and it is far more deadly, therefore there is nothing to worry about with this new germ. We needn’t do anything. It is all just media hype”. The difference of course is that countries are close to 100% exposed to the common flu viruses and humans have developed a measure of immunity and have the option to get vaccinated. With a new animal virus, exposure is very limited at the beginning (like right now) but humans who do catch it have little immunity and no vaccine. With no vaccine, we still lack herd immunity. IF n-CoV were to become saturated in our countries in a short time, like the common flu is now, then tell me the common flu is more dangerous. That is the point: To stop the spread of the virus because humans are not prepared to deal with it at high levels of exposure. And, I am fairly confident that the virus WILL be stopped due to measures that governments are taking. Yes, we MUST listen to all of their recommendations and not treat it as the common flu;Their actions to contain the virus and develop a vaccine are the REAL reasons we need not panic, not that the common flu is more dangerous and most people survive it.


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Van driver who took the Chinese couple from Dauin to DGT airport 12 days ago now in isolation at NOPH with flu symptoms.

 

I know and I was making a different point. In any case, the one thing you are saying that I might disagree with is your suggestion that many people are over-reacting. I really don’t see that happening. So far the media seems to have behaved and the authorities have taken fairly reasonable actions to contain the virus. Where do you see the over-reactions? I don’t see any panic around here, per se. I know the NBI has announced an investigation to combat “fake news” as they should. But from what I can see, the English language news has been fairly balanced. Even most of the social media has been fairly tame.


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OR: People (all animals) are hard wired to fear the unknown - it is what protects them from danger and so it is better that system is working than switched off