Originally Posted by
retrospect
This is not like the flu. Your information is wrong. Viral pnumonia requiring oxygen is a common feature of this disease. This is the case for healthy adults also. Secondary infection is also common. The Coronavirus produces a very large amount of virus in the blood and seems to suppress white cell production - nothing like the flu.
It is also very infectious and while it does kill more elderly it still makes adults gravely ill sometimes leading to death.
If you want to compare to the flu, take your flu deaths and multiply by 20 as it is about 20 times as deadly. The flu infects 15 to 30% of the population in a bad year. This virus is about twice as infectious, maybe more so. So take the number you got above and double it. Then assume that the number hospitalised for treatment and recover is is about ten times that. It takes up to a month to recover for a serious case.
So 40k flu deaths x20x2 = 160k deaths in the USA. And 1.6 million hospitalised. I'm sure they have enough beds and oxygen masks.
Of course no one knows how things will go but the situation is serious. We do not have the capacity to treat hundreds of thousands of cases. The world will not end. But your suggestion that is is no worse than the flu is wrong and a foolish way to think. Just because it is in China affecting Chinese doesn't mean it isn't real. Hyundai has just shut down all of its factories in Korea. Vw, Toyota, gm, and Apple have shut down their Chinese factories. Even if some miracle stops it spreading today, it will affect you.
Good news is punting doesn't put you at any greater risk than shopping or eating out or using a public toilet or going to the cinema...
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