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| Covid 19 virus |
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| james_s:
--- Quote from: Mr. Scram on March 18, 2020, 11:23:13 pm --- --- Quote from: flyte on March 18, 2020, 11:06:25 pm ---No way. Currently there are people on intensive care here in the 30-50 age group. Take the breathing equipment away and they might die. A regular flu does not put a substantial part of the healthy population on intensive care in a matter of weeks. And then there is more: doctors say patients who recover may face damaged lung tissue and be affected for life. That's not your regular flu. --- End quote --- I disagree. The regular flu costs many lives every year and that's despite it being both heavily monitored and fought with extensive flu shot programs. I don't think people understand the effort that goes into keeping the flu manageable. Yet that too is something most healthy people shrug off or sit out. --- End quote --- The flue kills between 10,000 and 20,000 people every year in the USA. That's around 30-60 people every day, some of them quite young, when I was a kid one of my little brother's friends died of the flu when he was 8 or 9. Jim Henson died of the flu when he was 53. The flu is very dangerous and potentially quite lethal, we have a safe, fairly effective, readily available and inexpensive vaccine and yet we have countless people too lazy to get vaccinated and others who actively refuse to be vaccinated. Most people are not saying that Covid-19 is harmless but rather it is not drastically more dangerous than the flu and yet the reaction is about 10 orders of magnitude more severe, I've never in my life seen this kind of hype around an infectious disease, and I'd like to see a bit of it spread out to other deadly diseases and less panic overall. The economic fallout of the panic is going to be far more harmful ultimately than the disease itself. |
| Mr. Scram:
Below is an article about the risk the virus poses to various age groups and how that compares to the flu. It confirms that while younger people do get gravely ill that indeed is the exception. The group of people younger than 40 y/o dying is very small and may have had pre-existing conditions. "There will be, as we’ve seen in influenza, an occasional person, who’s young and healthy, who winds up getting COVID-19, seriously ill and dies,” Fauci said in an interview with Dr. Howard Bauchner, the editor of JAMA. “But if you look at the weight of the data, the risk group is very, very clear." "People 60 and older accounted for more than 80% of the deaths in China, according to a major study in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. "Indeed, in the 2018-19 flu season, 2,450 people between the ages of 18 and 49 died in the United States, according to the CDC. The mortality rate from the flu is lower than from COVID-19, but far more people caught the flu last season — more than 35 million — than have gotten COVID-19 so far this year." https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-11/covid-19-risk-healthy-young-person |
| Sredni:
--- Quote from: james_s on March 18, 2020, 11:18:19 pm ---Last I heard, the flu was responsible for 12,000 deaths so far this season in the USA. The extreme disparity in reaction between the flu and Covid does not appear rational to me. --- End quote --- If had a dime every time I have read this bullshit, Jeff Bezos would be my butler. I mean, of all places, this is a forum for electronics-oriented folks. Have you ever seen the characteristic of a diode? What you are seeing now with Covid-19 is the part close to the axis, before the knee. The number you mention about the flu is the maximum allowed current. But mortality when all people have access to hospitalization and ICU when needed is the least of the problems. The real problem is the 20% that will require hospitalization when there will be no more place for them. If the curve is not flattened, this will make the mortality skyrocket. Think magic smoke escaping from a diode. |
| Mr. Scram:
--- Quote from: Sredni on March 18, 2020, 11:52:32 pm ---If had a dime every time I have read this bullshit, Jeff Bezos would be my butler. I mean, of all places, this is a forum for electronics-oriented folks. Have you ever seen the characteristic of a diode? What you are seeing now with Covid-19 is the part close to the axis, before the knee. The number you mention about the flu is the maximum allowed current. But mortality when all people have access to hospitalization and ICU when needed is the least of the problems. The real problem is the 20% that will require hospitalization when there will be no more place for them. If the curve is not flattened, this will make the mortality skyrocket. Think magic smoke escaping from a diode. --- End quote --- Please be civil. What you say doesn't necessarily contradict what james_s posted. |
| james_s:
--- Quote from: Sredni on March 18, 2020, 11:52:32 pm --- --- Quote from: james_s on March 18, 2020, 11:18:19 pm ---Last I heard, the flu was responsible for 12,000 deaths so far this season in the USA. The extreme disparity in reaction between the flu and Covid does not appear rational to me. --- End quote --- If had a dime every time I have read this bullshit, Jeff Bezos would be my butler. I mean, of all places, this is a forum for electronics-oriented folks. Have you ever seen the characteristic of a diode? What you are seeing now with Covid-19 is the part close to the axis, before the knee. The number you mention about the flu is the maximum allowed current. But mortality when all people have access to hospitalization and ICU when needed is the least of the problems. The real problem is the 20% that will require hospitalization when there will be no more place for them. If the curve is not flattened, this will make the mortality skyrocket. Think magic smoke escaping from a diode. --- End quote --- Yes I'm familiar with this, but why are we so lax about the flu when it kills so many thousands so predictably every year? And why are people in such a panic about Covid? Most of us will get it at some point, most of us will survive, a few will not, mostly the old and/or weak, mother nature is a cruel mistress. My point is not that Covid is harmless, it's that the flu is dangerous and that we should be responding rationally to both, not panicking, hoarding toilet paper and filling the airwaves with heavily sensationalized news that stirs up fear and panic. The fallout from the panic is going to kill many more people than the virus. Overreacting with fear also pushes others to blow off the danger as BS and overreact with carelessness. We should be careful, we should take steps, but we should also remain calm, not panic and carefully weigh the impacts of our reaction on society and consider the cost in life and everything else of some of the actions we are taking. If the economy collapses and we face massive unemployment large numbers of people will die due to lack of healthcare, food, shelter and other essentials. My view is similar to aviation. When you are flying a plane and something goes wrong, the #1 priority *always* is FLY THE PLANE. Then manage any other available resources to try to solve the problem and get out of trouble, but if you panic and crash because you are so focused on reacting to the problem that you forgot your most basic priority then the rest is moot. In our case our main priority needs to be to keep society going, keep people employed, keep the world running because if that all comes crashing down we won't have the luxury to worry about some people getting sick. |
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