"A COVID-19 coronavirus update from concerned physicians"

[donner]

A conservative physician friend i respect reposted this earlier. I think it gets to some of the misconceptions about comparing this to the flu at this point.

I am not panicking, nor trying to be political about any of this, but the 'the flu is worse' stuff is no longer holding true in the same sense that it did weeks ago. I admit that i was shocked yesterday to see a man, likely in the higher risk category, walk out of a restroom in a truck stop in alabama without washing his hands (okay, i was shocked for multiple reasons).

Anyway, an excerpt . There are graphs and such within the link for those who are interested.

COVID-19 isn’t just the flu?

COVID-19 has been described by some as “just a cold,” or just like the common flu. COVID-19 is not a common flu. COVID-19 is an order of magnitude worse than the flu. The fatality rate is approximately ten times worse than the flu.

The flu spreads from September through April in the U.S., and June through August in the Southern Hemisphere. Yes, it does cause severe illness in many, but it does so over a longer time course. Time is a variable that is working against us during this COVID-19 outbreak. COVID-19 victims will be presenting to a hospital in need of critical care at a rate that is far higher than occurs with the flu.

In addition, these patients will require hospital treatment over the course of a few weeks rather than the 3-4 months of a typical flu season. The health care system in the USA is not ready to handle tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people over a short time frame. In Italy, the health care system buckled under the strain, and the health care teams are now forced to make horrible life and death decisions.

I'll also add another article i read pointed out that 1) we have vaccinations for the flu, which always helps mitigate the impact of the flu on our health system and 2) our immune systems are familiar with the flu through years of exposure (both being sick and even when a vaccination didn't seem to work it still gave us exposure). We don't have that at this point for corona virus.

 

[Okie4570]

Something I think that is being overlooked by the masses is the ability/lack of ability to mass test COMBINED with no vaccine. You can line everyone up and mass test them, and if they leave that test and travel somewhere after that test or interact with anyone after that test, they just negated the results from that test. It may come back negative the next day, but you stopped at Sonic on the way home from the test and the car hop who is asymptomatic just gave it to you. And you now have it, even though you're thrilled the next morning to hear the negative results. Mass testing isn't the answer that some are thinking. People would have to test after each encounter with another person. Yes it will catch some infected people, but it's also going to give many a false sense of security.

 

[okierider]

Taking precautions is definitely in order! Buying a case of toilet paper ............ not so much. Not making light but the panic is real and along with that added stress from panic you lower your immune system!!
Common sense is in order along with limiting your MustScreamMedia talking hat racks and we will see this through.

I check J Hopkins and the CDC's website reports daily....... staying up on facts and acting accordingly. We went yesterday and stocked up to prepare but still no case of TP.

 

[donner]

Taking precautions is definitely in order! Buying a case of toilet paper ............ not so much. Not making light but the panic is real and along with that added stress from panic you lower your immune system!!
Common sense is in order along with limiting your MustScreamMedia talking hat racks and we will see this through.

I check J Hopkins and the CDC's website reports daily....... staying up on facts and acting accordingly. We went yesterday and stocked up to prepare but still no case of TP.

i agree with the no panic stuff, and i think that there are many things contributing to it. A problem i see with some of our numbers is we are simply behind on testing (and that the speed of the tests, as noted above, can give a false sense of security) and a poor true understanding of exponential growth.

I think they are a great place to start, but i don't think people should look at them and feel too confident that 'the numbers are low therefore i don't need to worry about social distancing' because the number of 'true' infected folks is likely going to be higher than 'confirmed'. And, as is noted many other places now, slowing the rate of infection is necessary to avoid overloading our system.

I was really floored when the guy walked out to a car near mine and his wife was putting three packs of toilet paper that had fallen out back into their car...

 

[Michael Armstrong]

If you want to explain on this website you will need some crayons. Lol

 

[BobbyV]

If you want to explain on this website you will need some crayons. Lol

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