Quick reminder: in 2017, the average flu was responsible for 80,000 deaths in the US.

At least 80,000 people died of flu last winter in U.S., CDC says.

The U.S. government estimates that 80,000 Americans died of flu and its complications last winter — the disease's highest death toll in at least four decades.

Making a bad year worse, the flu vaccine didn't work very well.

In recent years, flu-related deaths have ranged from about 12,000 to 56,000, according to the CDC.

Apparently, it was an especially aggressive strain.

Even the normal strains are responsible for thousands of deaths.

And the flu vaccine was even less effective than usual. Hard to believe since its almost completely useless to begin with.

This year's flu vaccine may only be 10% effective, experts warn.


So as the media whips everyone into a frenzy and local governments are imposing states of emergencies and deploying the national guard, do your part in reminding people that the Coronavirus is literally nothing compared to the common flu.

Could it get worse? Ofcourse. But at this point, its kinda meh.


Where did it originate? Who knows.

What we do know is that a US led group of scientists located and extracted the most deadly flu virus of all time.

And if that wasnt special enough, they were kind enough to publish the genetic sequence online so that anyone could recreate it! Yay!


Scientists have recreated the 1918 Spanish flu virus, one of the deadliest ever to emerge, to the alarm of many researchers who fear it presents a serious security risk.

Undisclosed quantities of the virus are being held in a high-security government laboratory in Atlanta, Georgia, after a nine-year effort to rebuild the agent that swept the globe in record time and claimed the lives of an estimated 50 million people.

The genetic sequence is also being made available to scientists online, a move which some fear adds a further risk of the virus being created in other labs.

a reply to: gladtobehere

Y'know, many of these "quick reminders" seem to be intended to make people realize that the corona isn't as bad as people are making it out to be, but one has to also keep in mind people are mass buying out tp rather than anything else that could actually benefit them, so in the end, these "quick reminders" may just make people panic more often.

So maybe people should quit "quick reminding" people because the masses have lost all sense of reason over the last few years. lol If they had it at all.

a reply to: gladtobehere

How much faster does corona spread compared to the average flu?

a reply to: scraedtosleep

that's hard to say, because only people that feel that they need tested get tested.

You go to the doctors they do a flu test, they say you have the flu or the Wuh Flu, go home and do X, Y, and Z if it gets really bad come back
or you can not go to the doctors and do X, Y, and Z at home and if it get really bad, go for the 1st time.

originally posted by: Necrobile
a reply to: gladtobehere

Y'know, many of these "quick reminders" seem to be intended to make people realize that the corona isn't as bad as people are making it out to be, but one has to also keep in mind people are mass buying out tp rather than anything else that could actually benefit them, so in the end, these "quick reminders" may just make people panic more often.

So maybe people should quit "quick reminding" people because the masses have lost all sense of reason over the last few years. lol If they had it at all.

I'm content with losing a few stragglers that think a punch up over aisle 9 is warranted in order to save them from the apocalypse.

who isn't?

a reply to: gladtobehere

What are you talking about? The flu is NOT worse than Corona. Total numbers don't account for percentage of deaths.

Example Statement: "More white people are arrested for drugs than Black people."

While that statement is true, because the white population is much larger than the black population, the latter has a MUCH higher percentage of arrests being a minority group.

So what happens if corona spreads as widely as the flu? Using your average range of 12,000-56,000, corona would kill 276,000-1,288,000 since its average rate now in the US is 2.3% (or 23x influenza). No one has antibodies to it so it IS spreading fast.

I'm not worried about myself and I'm sure it'll be mild for me. I AM however concerned for the people in my life that are more immuno-compromised. Math isn't hard.

a reply to: scraedtosleep

Seasonal flu has an R0 that hovers around 1.3

The median with 95% CI of R0 of COVID-19 was about 2.28

(R0 Is the number of people infected if 1 infected person enters a room with 10 uninfected ppl)

so almost 2x a contagious.. but that's if you believe an authoritarian communist dictatorship to tell the truth

CFR (case fatality rate) for flu is 0.1%

CFR for covid19 is 3.4%

So thats 34x more deadly again... that's if you believe an authoritarian communist dictatorship to tell the truth. Is Italy is around 6% right now.

THIS IS NOT THE FLU, ANYONE INSINUATING IT IS IGNORANT AND SPREADING DISINFORMATION! PERIOD.

a reply to: UnendingVigilance

its a 3.4% CFR per the WHO:

www.worldometers.info...

a reply to: SocratesJohnson

that's hard to say, because only people that feel that they need tested get tested.

not true, in the USA even ppl that thought they need to be tested weren't because we just this week started to have test available. Also some of the people that were reports as dying of the flu were posthumously tested and it was found they had the Wu-flu

Just my two cents, but my personal opinion is that you really can't compare the total deaths from the flu over a whole given year to the current tally of deaths from the chinese coronavirus over the course of a few weeks. You are comparing a finished painting to one that has barely been started ...I would wait until we get a handle on this thing to start relating the two. A worst-case projection from the CDC has 1.6 million Americans falling to the pandemic if urgent measures aren't taken to arrest its spread. We are addressing those now.

Hopefully, it will not come close to the 80,000 number that you reference in your post.

The spreading of the idea that this is just a "really bad flu", is irresponsible.

This is not the flu.

We have at least some immunity towards many strains of flu, due to exposure every season. We also have a lot more data about the flu, because it is seasonal, so we have a lot of years of research under our belts.

This virus is novel, so we don't have immunity.

While some people have mild cases, it is still more infectious, and potentially a lot more dangerous.

No, I know the world average. I was using just the total cases and deaths in JUST the US. And that's likely to change as well.

As of right now, we have 1,832 known US cases and 41 deaths (41/1832=0.0224-2.24%) so it's already fluctuated from my initial reply.

www.worldometers.info...

a reply to: Jubilation T Cornpone

covid19 has been around for almost four months, not a few weeks. your argument is invalid.

I just want to add it is not just a simple as how many deaths compared to flu. It is also many people will get it and not die. And the window to pass it around is longer. Look what is happening in Italy. The hospitals are overrun with the sick...is this what will happen here in the usa...... a reply to: bismos

originally posted by: bismos
a reply to: Jubilation T Cornpone

covid19 has been around for almost four months, not a few weeks. your argument is invalid.

go back four months and tell us how many people in the US had it? Better yet two months. Better yet one month...

originally posted by: smkymcnugget420
a reply to: scraedtosleep

Seasonal flu has an R0 that hovers around 1.3

The median with 95% CI of R0 of COVID-19 was about 2.28

(R0 Is the number of people infected if 1 infected person enters a room with 10 uninfected ppl)

so almost 2x a contagious.. but that's if you believe an authoritarian communist dictatorship to tell the truth

CFR (case fatality rate) for flu is 0.1%

CFR for covid19 is 3.4%

So thats 34x more deadly again... that's if you believe an authoritarian communist dictatorship to tell the truth. Is Italy is around 6% right now.

THIS IS NOT THE FLU, ANYONE INSINUATING IT IS IGNORANT AND SPREADING DISINFORMATION! PERIOD.

Thank you for making this point before I had to.

Another factor that makes this even worse than simply considering the R0 is the doubling time, although the two are related. Generally, a high R0 means a fast doubling time. The doubling time for COVID-19 right now is estimated at 6 days. The H1N1 influenza of 2009-2010 rarely had a doubling time of less than 17 days.

In order to understand the impact of this, consider a hypothetical model in which you start with one infection of flu and one infection of COVID-19 on January 15 (approximately when patient zero in the US showed up) and follow it for 90 days (April 15):

Let's say, just to keep the calculations easy, the flu had a doubling time of 15 days; in the 90 days from January 15 to April 15 there would be 6 doublings. 2 raised to the power of 6 is 64, so the single case of flu in January would result in there having been 64 cases of flu by April. With a doubling time of 6 days, there would be 15 doublings between January 15 an April 15. 2 raised to the power of 15 is 32,768, so the single case of COVID-19 in January would result in there having been 512 times more COVID-19 cases in April than flu cases. This is the power of exponential growth and is why social distancing is so important; it can reduce R0 directly and increase the doubling time, indirectly.

This is why idiots like Rush Limbaugh who claim that COVID-19 Is just a cold, are dangerously stupid.

a reply to: gladtobehere
Thanks for pointing out these sobering facts. Thank goodness CoronaVirus-19 far less deadly! Fewer than 100 deaths in the USA over the past 2 months. 99% Recovery rate.


www.worldometers.info...

a reply to: carewemust

CareWeMust, I love ya mate but it's not a 99% recovery rate. by your own link for the us, there's 1832 cases with 41 deaths. That's a death rate of 2.237%. the recovered in the US is only 31 people so far, so that's only about 1.692% of those infected that have recovered. Most cases are mild but most are also still active and can spread to people who are more immuno-compromised.

Unrelated, I do love a lot of your posts and replies but I also enjoy maths.

originally posted by: bismos
a reply to: Jubilation T Cornpone

covid19 has been around for almost four months, not a few weeks. your argument is invalid.

My argument is definitely NOT invalid because chinese coronavirus has NOT been around in the U.S. for 4 months. It only just recently got here. And that is what we are comparing ...Deaths in the U.S.

originally posted by: daryllyn
The spreading of the idea that this is just a "really bad flu", is irresponsible.

This is not the flu.

We have at least some immunity towards many strains of flu, due to exposure every season. We also have a lot more data about the flu, because it is seasonal, so we have a lot of years of research under our belts.

This virus is novel, so we don't have immunity.

While some people have mild cases, it is still more infectious, and potentially a lot more dangerous.

It seems that there is no debating it with some people. We don't know exactly how bad this can be, given the cases thus far are so new. Or .. we just don't know much about it.

That it has spread this far and wide and caused so much calamity, well.. I'm not flipping it off, just yet.