[rlcooper70]

Are you implying the CDC does not know the estimates for the regular winter flu? Or are you saying this virus is not much more lethal than the normal flu? Normal Flu season ... 1.3% to 1.4% mortality. This one appears to be between 3.2% and 4.5%. And many more will get this one because of the long assymtomatic incubation period. If you refuse to take it seriously ..... how does that make sense?

[rlcooper70]

You are minimizing the virus ... perhaps that is why it is spreading so quickly. Very sad.

[Swoop]

Only 10 years ago a different strain of virus, that also jumped from animals to humans infected over 60 million Americans, with over 13,000 deaths. How many businesses closed? How much time did the news devote to reporting it? H1N1 didn’t get hysterical news coverage. People didn’t hoard toilet paper. We have had roughly 100,000 cases of the Coronavirus - remember 60,000,000 Americans got H1N1. And early on they talked about the fact that H1N1 was much deadlier than the flu. But when all the dust settled and more testing was done, the numbers ended up being pretty similar. Over 80% of the people that contract the Coronavirus will have little to no symptoms. The majority of them will not be tested, at least in the short run. Their results aren’t figured into the mortality rate. We should take precautions, but we shouldn’t be hysterical.

[Ashley from UK]

The risk is not about the number of cases in a season it's about the number of cases in a day or week that require treatment.

If treatment is available your all right it's not such a problem.

But with such a large number of cases at one point in time it is more serious and the death rate will be far higher.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/196234/covid19-imperial-researchers-model-likely-impact/

[tscmedlake]

Some of the differences have already been mentioned. But here is a summary:

COVID-19 is new, so not as well understood as the flu. Based on recent analysis its transmission rate is at least 2X GREATER than the flu. In part this is because people who get the flu get sick rather quickly (one to two days) while people who contract COVID-19 don’t get sick for one to two WEEKS.

The death rate for COVID-19 is AT LEAST 10X that of the flu. In older populations it the death rate may be 20X or more than that of the flu.

The symptoms of the flu require hospitalization in appx 1% of the cases. For COVID-19 it is closer to 12% (again 10+ X higher than the flu). The hospitalization rate is even higher for senior citizens. Further, the average flu hospitalization resolves in 5 or 6 days. COVID-19 cases are taking 10 to 20 days (twice as long) if they resolve at all.

There is ZERO “herd immunity” to COVID-19. Due to vaccines and past exposures a large percentage of the population is immune to the flu.

The flu almost always subsides in the Summer. It is unknown how COVID-19 will behave in the Summer.

Hope that helps.

[jeffy]

The Difference Between The Flu and COVID19 and how it is spreading - The following is a forward written by a MD from Upstate Hospital (Syracuse NY):
For anyone who knows that one person who just can’t seem to get on board with this- feel free to share.
Let me introduce myself: I am a practicing ER doctor with a Bachelors degree in cell and molecular biology/genetics and a Masters degree in public health in addition to my doctorate.
COVID is not a flu. Not even a little. Here are reasons why:
1. It is a separate species. It is no more like influenza than you are like a hippo. DIFFERENT SPECIES.
2. It is an airborne virus. This means the tiny droplets can stay in the air for a full 2 hours. So if a person coughed in aisle 4 of Target 1.5 hours ago, they may be home now but their covid cloud is still hanging there just waiting for you to walk by and take a breath. Influenza is not an airborne virus. It is droplet spread- meaning someone has to directly crop dust you with their sneeze to get you sick. Covid is much more contagious.
3. Covid is more virulent. Virulence factor is a measure of how catchy something is. For example, the flu is like beer. It takes a bunch to get you drunk. Covid is more like tequila - A little goes a long way. You need to suck up a lot of flu particles to actually catch the flu; with covid, even a few particles is enough to infect you.
4. Covid has a longer incubation than the flu. When you catch the flu, you typically get sick in the next 1-2 days. This is awesome because it means you stay at home while contagious because you feel like a heap of fried garbage. Covid has a blissful 5-9 days of symptom free time during which you are well enough to head to the movies, gym or mar-a-lago while also being contagious enough to infect everyone you encounter.
5. Covid has a longer duration of illness than flu. With covid, you have a 5-9 days of blissful asymptomatic contagiousness. This then turns into about 1 week of cough and overall feeling like hell but still surviving. Week 2 is when things hit the fan and people end up unable to breathe and on a ventilator. Many stay on the vent for up to 15 days. 5 days incubating+7 kinda sick days + 15 days on a ventilator makes for 27 days of virus spreading illness, (assuming your don’t just die of massive asphyxiation and body-wide collapse from overwhelming infection somewhere in that last week).The flu has an average incubation of 1-2 days and sick time of 7 days for a total of 9 infectious days. In the world of deadly viruses, that 18 extra days might as well be a millennia.
6. Covid is more deadly. A LOT more deadly. The flu has about a 0.2% mortality rate, meaning 2 of every thousand people who get sick with flu will die. On the contrary, the death rate from covid is reportedly 2%, so 10 times more deadly than flu. Ten times more death seems like a lot more death to me. Whats more worrisome is that 2% is actually incorrect because it doesn’t kill kids so that skews the average. With covid, age is a major factor in survival. If we don’t include people under 30, the death rate for adults is on average 4.5%. 9 out of every 200 adults that get this will die from it. Do you know 200 adults? Do you think losing 9 of them is no big deal? Since mortality increases with age in covid, the risk gets worse as you get older so if we put 100 grannies in a room with covid, only 85 would make it out alive to make pies and tell great stories of the old days... and that just sucks.
I hope that helps to clarify is why covid is in no way a flu, why you are in no way a hippo, and why staying home is the only way for non-essential people to do their part while I spend my days at work covered in a plastic poncho, sucking air through a stuffy respirator mask, leaving my scrubs in my driveway, showering the covid off at 4am when I get in, and thinking to myself “now do u still think it was just a flu?” as I risk my own life with my face 2 inches from their highly contagious, gasping mouth while I slide the plastic tube down their throat and start up the ventilator.
Enough said.

[villageuser]

Originally Posted by hotdog

Seasonal Flu Deaths in US 2017-2018 61 Thousand. Why are we not looking at those numbers. This COV19 has death rate of 1.3% and that is almost half the season flu rate
What are we doing?

The flu is a known disease that is transmitted human to human. The Novel Coronavirus is a disease that was in animals, got transmitted to a human, then changed itself again to be able to be transmitted human to human. It is an unknown disease, with no vaccine or treatment at this time, and highly contagious. The experts are finding out more things about it daily, but never forget this is an unknown which has managed to transform itself twice, and can do so again.

This is not hysteria. This is a concerted effort to try to prevent the medical and financial devastation that would happen if this disease goes unchecked. And, by the way, from what I have read, death from this disease is nothing like the flu. It is horrendous.

[Westie Man]

Originally Posted by retiredguy123

Not sure they ignore them, but there is a vaccine to prevent the flu and drugs to treat it. For the Coronavirus, there is no vaccine or approved treatment.

That is the big difference that some people don't get NO VACCINE

[J1ceasar]

1000 % of people tested have the regular flu compared to corona virus . all will get infected now from Being near those with it. On test line

[roscoguy]

Originally Posted by rlcooper70

Are you implying the CDC does not know the estimates for the regular winter flu? Or are you saying this virus is not much more lethal than the normal flu? Normal Flu season ... 1.3% to 1.4% mortality. This one appears to be between 3.2% and 4.5%. And many more will get this one because of the long assymtomatic incubation period. If you refuse to take it seriously ..... how does that make sense?

Still not quite right. Using the average of the numbers from the posted CDC link, the death rate from the seasonal flu would be almost .1% - not 1.3% to 1.4%. The death rate from OCVID-19 is harder to find, but sources seem to estimate approximately 2% to as much as 7%. Using the lowest of those estimates, the COVID-19 death rate would be 20 times higher than the flu. Even if we assume that 50% of CV infections go unreported, the death rate could still be 10 times more than the flu. If CV proves to be as infectious as the flu and nothing were done to control the spread, the deaths (again using the CDC's average number of yearly flu cases & a 2% death rate) could be nearly 1 million. That is why there is such worldwide 'panic'.

[Ashley from UK]

Originally Posted by tscmedlake

Some of the differences have already been mentioned. But here is a summary:

COVID-19 is new, so not as well understood as the flu. Based on recent analysis its transmission rate is at least 2X GREATER than the flu. In part this is because people who get the flu get sick rather quickly (one to two days) while people who contract COVID-19 don’t get sick for one to two WEEKS.

The death rate for COVID-19 is AT LEAST 10X that of the flu. In older populations it the death rate may be 20X or more than that of the flu.

The symptoms of the flu require hospitalization in appx 1% of the cases. For COVID-19 it is closer to 12% (again 10+ X higher than the flu). The hospitalization rate is even higher for senior citizens. Further, the average flu hospitalization resolves in 5 or 6 days. COVID-19 cases are taking 10 to 20 days (twice as long) if they resolve at all.

There is ZERO “herd immunity” to COVID-19. Due to vaccines and past exposures a large percentage of the population is immune to the flu.

The flu almost always subsides in the Summer. It is unknown how COVID-19 will behave in the Summer.

Hope that helps.

and to add to this COVID-19 is hitting in a short period of time NOT over a season. The problem is not about how many people will contract the illness. It's how many people require treatment at the same time and medical services not being able to give treatment. Lack of beds = increased mortality. Slow the progress may not reduce the number of people infected but it WILL increase the likelihood of recovery for those with complications.

[mjc1145]

I don't believe that the CDC ignores the seasonal flu numbers in the comparison to Corona virus. Major issues with Corona that are cause for concern:

1. We have no experience with Corona...therefore no acquired immunity as with flu. As yet there are no proven treatments, and no vaccines to help prevent or reduce the impact of the disease.

2. The flu season is spread out over many months through the country due to the impact of the vaccines and immunities (both innate and acquired). The Corona is hitting areas like a wave. In effect, with the flu we have already "flattened the curve."

3. Because we have this flattened curve of people coming down with the flu, there is little worry that the medical system will be overwhelmed with patients needing treatment and ventilator hospital beds. With Corona, the wave of patients that are in need in the NYC Metro area will or is happening (e.g. New Orleans and Atlanta) at other large cities. The numbers will be lower in smaller communities, but their ability to handle the rapid rise in the numbers requiring treatment is also lower.

4. And because the sickness does not occur immediately, the ability to infect others is greatly increased with Corona...and then there's the fact that while the sickness does not occur quickly, the symtoms do.

[NotFromAroundHere]

Originally Posted by J1ceasar

1000 % of people tested have the regular flu compared to corona virus . all will get infected now from Being near those with it. On test line

I'm just going to pretend I didn't read this. I 1000% didn't read this.

[akin1]

and less than 1/2 the Americans get the flu shot each year.

[HIgolfers]

Thanks Choro&Swing- Best post I have read yet.