wclem wrote: It is the flu, nothing more. People die from it, and all kinds of other things. So now they have gotten so many people stirred up that it is actually having an impact on me and others here. I am sorry to the people who are going to financially struggle due to this idiot epidemic, I may join in with you soon.
I will note here that this is NOT, in fact, the flu (and I'm not just being pedantic). The flu is indeed quite dangerous, but we have vaccines for that to reduce and constrain the spread. While some vaccine years are less effective and some years more, all flu vaccines, even the poorly-matched ones, reduce the spread and intensity of the flu. We also have widespread and accurate testing for the flu and can readily track cases and outbreaks. Our medical system is prepared for the flu and largely knows what to expect with it. We also know who is at greatest risk (the very young, the very old, and the immunocompromised). The death rate for the flu in the US is about .1% thanks to vaccines and the ability to prepare for it seasonally.
This new coronavirus, officially “SARS-CoV-2”, is something our immune systems are relatively unfamiliar with. Yes, it has a relationship to the corona viruses that cause SARS and MERS, but those aren't things that sweep through annually, for one. Also, we have no vaccine for SARS-CoV-2. And we were caught unprepared. When the flu strikes we've already started vaccinating, slowing the advance even before it starts to spread widely. With SARS-CoV-2 there's nothing to stop it from taking off like wildfire (you'll note that countries have been hit hard in only a couple weeks - the flu doesn't do that). Additionally, though data is still incomplete, the death rate appears much higher, between 1.4 and 2.3% based off two data sets from China. It is particularly deadly to the elderly, just like the flu though moreso, but appears to have a much weaker impact on the young, though still dangerous. On top of that, political interference has slowed the response from our CDC, meaning we're way behind where we need to be on being able to effectively test and screen people for this. That makes it harder to deliver targeted care.
The flu this year has been a bit harsher on us, meaning that hospital beds and medical care are already in slightly high demand, and now this rapidly spreading SARS-CoV-2 comes along and we don't have a vaccine to slow it down. That means that our system is going to be quickly over-burdened. A lot of health care workers who would otherwise be required to have flu vaccines and thus able to remain healthy at peak times are going to be falling ill with the very rapidly-spreading illness that they will have a great additional burden to try to treat. So you have a virus that spreads quickly due to a lack of vaccines coupled with a higher death rate. It means many more people have become and will become sick in a much shorter span of time vs the flu, a greater proportion of those people (10x?) will die than if this were the flu, and our health care system is not prepared to take this on. Oh yeah, and this is happening during flu season, so it's in addition to the yearly flu.
If you're looking just at symptoms, yeah, this looks a lot like the flu. But the devil is in the details, and the details are telling us this is not the flu and we can't just blow it off. Fear and panic won't help with this pandemic, but at the same time, failing to take this SARS-CoV-2 seriously is equally dangerous. Our society seems to have two modes as of late, On and Off, 0% or 100%. Both those responses are unhelpful right now. And if you're not an older adult with health issues and thus not in the highest risk group, you're still going to come into contact with other people, so don't take unnecessary risks, for others if not for yourself.