Always watch the ratio -known cases vs. deaths & flu comparison

Also keep in mind the death percent isn't the only issue with this virus.

A big issue is its hitting us hard, all at once - The hospitals get overfilled and the system can't handle it. Italy is having so many deaths right now because all their ICU beds are taken up and they dont have the staff or the resources to handle each case - people who need treatment, who could otherwise survive... get put aside to die. Doctors are having to pick and choose who lives and who doesn't - Their system is over burdened, and they cant cope with it. It's so contagious with so many cases, hospitals are running out of PPE -

USA is in its very early stages right now. The hospitals arent crowded - It's estimated that 50-75% of the population will be infected. Lets say 5% of those need to goto the hospital, and be the most conservative we can. 327 million in usa, 50% is 163.5 million..5% of that is 8.175 million people. Those who do goto the hospital are there for weeks on a ventilator - So 8 million people needing a hospital bed for 2-3 weeks, all within a short period of time. Every country thats got hit earlier has run out of ventilators, Theyre resorting to 3D printing parts to try to keep up.. but still cant. Theyre running out of beds - USA ICU beds are already at a 50-75% Capacity before this hit.

Whether our stats go up, or down, doesnt change the main fact - We need to slow the spread so our system can deal with the disease, and its fallouts properly. The flu doesn't spread this fast or take up this many resources. Imagine if 5% of LA had to goto the hospital all at once.

The three hospitals in my city have all written to the person in charge asking them to initiate a shutdown - We're at 424 cases, and they said we're already getting close to capacity, and if it gets worst (Which it will) They do not want to have to pick and choose who gets to live or not. Give the letter a read, most hospitals are calling for the same thing and saying the same thing - If left unchecked, Italy will become the norm, not the outlier... I personally don't want to see 800 people in my province die every day.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ETpzQOkUMAAw8XQ?format=jpg&name=large

It's one reason I hate when people compare this to the flu - They may be similiar in certain ways... but the problems and issues each one has is completely different.

 

Why try to minimize this by comparing it to the flu? Its a false equivalency.
The flu doesnt have a hospitalization rate of 20%.
The flu doesnt have exponential spread. The flu has a vaccine and treatments such as tamiflu.
People have some immunity to the flu.
6000 people in europe have died in what, 3 weeks? Almost 800 people in a single day in Italy and it is just getting started.
People are not heeding warnings because there are still people saying its just the flu when it is not in any way shape or form.

 

Like in Italy and soon NYC and WA state, the death rates will start to rise as hospitals run out of equipment to treat everyone. That is the scary part. They dont look so bad here now because most hospitals arent overwhelmed yet.

 

I don't think you're wrong, the death rate might be lower, or it might be higher - Italy right now is at a 8.5% death rate. It differs based on age and other factors.

I do think everyone comparing it to the flu is whats giving people a false sense of security though. I drove to work today to grab some vinyl, I saw the costco, walmart, and safeway parking lots completely full - I saw a dozen or so kids at the park, groups of teenagers hanging out, and groups of 10+ bike riding together. People think flu... and then they ignore the social distancing, which is a shame.

I personally think if everyone followed the advice of those in charge and kept a 6 ft radius around them, didnt go out when they didn't need to... there wouldn't be a need for a shutdown. Even in italy you still have groups of people going out and getting fines because theyre not only ignoring the lockdown, but ignoring all the recommendations - same with france... it's human nature, and that's in places with high death tolls.

I stopped at a small grocery store to grab some milk and bread since we were out - Everyone was lined up toe to toe... I had to use the self checkout to get any space, and after I did it made me realize there was probably 100 people in the past hour touching the same screen I did.

As a society, we're all living much closer to eachother - 10 years ago before there was 300 flights a day from china to other countries, this would have been contained - now travel is so widespread and far that its a big issue... and this is showing just how much of an issue it is. Lets say USA goes full lockdown for 4 months - they get rid of the virus, all is good... they start building the economy again. Next month someone from say Japan comes to visit - With a 2 week no symptoms period, ALL of this gets started over again and we're back to square one. It's a very scary situation when you look at the bigger picture instead of just whats happening now.

I think this disease is going to have a long lasting, economic impact that goes far beyond the death tolls and impacts it's having right now... until we get a vaccine or some other way to deal with it. Theyre talking about this being a seasonal thing that comes back every year - Hopefully not as bad as people start to develop herd immunity to it - but who knows... Right now everyone is playing catch up, and the truth is we don't know how bad, or how good this is - At best it's just another flu that strains all our resources and we can rebuild... At worst it's something that cripples how international travel is, and it becomes a way of life. Too early to tell...right now we're just trying to get it in check.

Honestly, no discussion is a bad discussion though - The more people that see and talk about this, the more it gets out there. Not everyone follows every news cycle, so not everyone knows how bad it is. Plus theres so much fake news, some fearmongering from news cycles, I don't blame people for thinking its not bad. so long as you don't come up with some whack job theory that the government is trying to turn the country into China... I dislike trump and his policies, but even I know that's just dumb.

The government is trying to stop panic... 4 days ago our health minister (The one in charge of all decisions for our province) Told everyone to go outside, that it doesnt spread outdoors... go up the ski hills and enjoy some skiing, visit the parks and experience all BC has to offer...then the next day she shut down the ski resorts saying its too dangerous. Then said parks are still fine, just wash your kids hands...then next mandated those shut down also. Those in charge don't know what theyre doing, I dont expect normal citizens to know. (Not a diss on her, every world leader/person in charge is reacting the best they can... No one is prepared for this, so you cant fault them for changing their stance as stuff progresses)

 

I think people that find the flu comparison useful are the ones that dont want to believe that this is a big deal.

 

If you are interested in how the numbers have been developing, these two articles are a very worthwhile read.
While they are laden with statistics, they are explained in plain language and make a very strong case about the course of action that governments need to take in response to the Corona Virus pandemic. It will take some time to do so but it is suggested that you read both of them in this order. Of course, many of us have plenty of time to read now!

This article was published on March 10, 2020
Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now

This second article was published this Thursday, March 19, 2020
Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance

 

https://londonreal.tv/the-truth-beh...bO1CgheF8Z0eYeElvQ58YyUKh6AAGpeVG0E9KTF50z5Cg

 

I'm way beyond just being annoyed with people who keep insisting the SARS-CoV-2 virus (aka the coronavirus) is no worse than the flu. It's #@%king wrong just in technical terms and downright irresponsible and negligent as a way of telling people not to be concerned.

The fact remains this virus is a lot more lethal than the seasonal flu. Yeah, 40,000 Americans may die of complications from seasonal flu in a given season. But that's out of 80 million infections. Seasonal flu has a 1 in 2000 mortality rate. This coronavirus has a much higher mortality rate. Worldwide out of confirmed cases (328,000+ versus 14,366 deaths) is 4.3%. The mortality rate is varying by location based on the ability of local medical systems to respond to the crush of patients.

In the very best case scenario, where everything is working right, there is a shot at pushing COVID-19 mortality rates down to levels close to the flu. New York is currently at that level. But other areas of the nation are doing considerably worse. Our fake free market health care system is being exposed for the patchwork, disorganized mess it truly is. We have states and cities bidding against each other for all kind of supplies and personal protection equipment. Private companies are price gouging and profiteering off this crisis. There is no national-level, organized effort taking place. Here in Oklahoma it's still up to each individual town or city to set policy. This mess is leaving our system highly vulnerable to getting overwhelmed if SARS-CoV-2 infections are allowed to scale up to the size of a seasonal flu spread. If 80 million Americans get infected by this coronavirus around 2 million are going to get killed by it. That's a hell of a lot more than the deaths from a typical flu season.

 

It made the news in the UK that a lady got charged around 35k in the USA for just testing and treatments - with a hospital stay.

Granted it said she had no insurance. But that’s crazy! A lot of people are going to get in a fair amount of debt due to a pandemic and a few people are gonna get very rich.

 

Why do you think your taxes in the UK are so high? Hospital stays are very expensive. No service is truly 'free'.

 

Honestly they’re not that high if I might get the coronavirus and not need to pay a penny. Hell, I could get a brain tumour and I’m not gonna have to pay any extra. Then if I have said tumour and have no income, I can still get treated without leaving my family in mountains of debt.

Pretty much every developed country aside from the USA has universal healthcare of some sort and it functions fine. USA needs to treat anyone with coronavirus for free or it will get much worse a lot quicker.

 

Yeah, this crap about high taxes in other industrialized countries for so-called "socialized medicine" is a real non-starter. It is a FACT the United States has a declining life expectancy. The hateful, runaway costs of "free market" health care is one of the root causes. Most Americans just never ever see a doctor at all. They don't want to be totally financially DESTROYED by the profane costs. That may end up being one thing to make the SARS-CoV-2 crisis in the United States even worse. We're definitely going to have people getting infected with the virus, developing the COVID-19 respiratory illness, but still avoiding treatment because of the punishingly extreme costs of treatment.

I've always been angry about this perverted, greed-driven situation with the health care system in the US. My anger tends to ebb and flow depending on how my company gets jerked around every year when it comes time for policy renewal. Since President Bone Spurs' administration gutted more provisions of so-called "Obamacare," our company's health insurance costs spiked. My deductible went from $1500 to $6000. The quality of benefits is greatly reduced. The situation is getting back to where it was in the late 2000's when we were looking at just getting rid of health insurance entirely. I had a $10,000 deductible during Bush's last year in office.

Basically if you're working in a small business you have only one option in America's "free market" health care system: don't you dare ever, I mean ever get ill. You're going to get bent over and financially gang raped if you do.

All these private, "free market" hospitals and other health care companies are extremely dependent on American taxpayer funding via Medicare and Medicaid. I absolutely guarantee if those greedy criminals didn't have Medicare and Medicaid to use as a means of propping up their business model, to double-dip at everyone's expense, you wouldn't see every hospital in the country surrounded by mansions. A whole lot of our wealthy upper class is built solely on the decades long practice of price gouging everyone else for health care services.

 

and how much does health insurance cost the average family a year? $15k +/- plus out of pocket? Using the median income of $63k in the USA, thats 24% just on health care now add in taxes at another 24% puts you at 48% of your income between insurance and income tax. Its not a very good argument

 

Average salary in the UK is 30k, you don’t pay national insurance on about the first 10k, and don’t pay any taxes on the first 10k (ish, haven’t checked recently.

National insurance is only 12% so that’s around £2400 a year. Which is what? A single ambulance trip if you’re uninsured?

 

Canada has "Free" health care also. The cost is estimated at 10% of your total income. Doesn't matter if you make 5K, or 500K... the average taxes you pay for "Free health care" is 10%. So in your case, if someone makes 63K... Theyre paying 6.3K, for their whole family... which could be 2 adults, 5 kids... When you look at the big picture it's not much.

21% Of our paycheck goes towards taxes give or take with our median income. A quick google search says USA is at 19% (Though I could be wrong). You guys just spend your taxes on stuff other than medicare.

A LOT of mis-information about Canadian/UK Medicare makes its way around USA - From both sides. One side says it's perfect, lets switch to it theres no downsides... other side says it's going to bankrupt every family. So, don't believe everything you read, or every number both sides spew out.

It has its problems, and maybe the problems were worst when it was first introduced (Before I was before), We've been doing it since the 60s.... But it's a system on a normal, non pandemic day, I'd not want to do without.

 

Here is a good PBS documentary explaining the main issue with Covid 19 - Not the death rate, but the fact it's all happening in a very short period of time, and will exhaust our healthcare system, and the growth rate is exponential.

 

We've had taxpayer funded health care for all for about 40 years now in Australia.
This was controversial when it was introduced by a left wing government but now is universally accepted as a good thing.
If you need urgent life saving treatment you get good care with nothing to pay.
If it's "elective" surgery like a hernia or knee replacement you will wait a while.
I had a serious bike crash 10 years ago and got choppered to intensive care, had the best specialists and several operations with a 3 week of hospital stay.
Didn't receive a bill for any of it. Seeing specialists afterwards cost me.
We do keep paid health insurance paid up in case we need urgent non life threatening care but have hardly hardly ever used it.

 

How long is a while? I know sometimes "elective" knee surgeries here can take a while too because of the things insurance companies do to delay it.