COVID-19 (artist formerly known as Wuhan strain novel Corona virus)

% wise not close though. Not that it makes anything better.

 

Would have been wild if covid would have been as deadly as the Spanish flu

 

For the US, it has more deadly, and faster.

 

Imagine if we didn't have oxygen.

 

It was more contagious. But had a much lower fatality rate

 

There would be a lot of people in 1918 that would not be dead, had there not been slums. Had there been more clean water. More sanitization. More ability to order from home. And work from home.

Enough so to equalize the difference in population.

COVID, for the US has been deadlier and faster than 1918, despite available lifestyle changes.

 

Also a large chunk of the young male population in Army camps and the government actively suppressing the severity of it in the camps (if I remember my history).

 

There's no reason to trip over anything. Young, healthy people are very unlikely to die of Covid. Even moreso if vaccinated. But anyone thinking it's "impossible" is kidding himself.

 

But is that really how it works? Medicine modernizes, and the bugs modernize with it, in a lot of cases. Isn't that where superbugs come from? We aren't the only species out there that knows how to grow and adapt.

You say "there's a reason to take it seriously" as if I'm saying there's not. I think COVID is serious. I've never said anything to the contrary.

 

That's not what I said. Simply stating "more deaths" lacks context. That's all.

 

No antibiotics, no respiration support, not testing, no teleworking options... You left out context.

 

I don't think it's such a simple direct comparison. Having today's healthcare during the H1N1 flu outbreak of 1918-1919 or 1918's level of healthcare today, not to mention the things float pointed out, would definitely impact the mortality rates. I think it's impossible to look at death rates in a vacuum.

For example, they unsuccessfully tried to develop a vaccine for H1N1 flu during the pandemic, but their lack of medical understanding had them targeting the wrong strain. Effective flu vaccines weren't developed until the 1940s.

Imagine facing COVID today with the current population & its mobility without readily available oxygen, ventilators, steroids, vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, critical care beds & staff, effective PPE, blood transfusions that contain antibodies, modern infection control, modern availability of care, and on & on. Conversely, apply today's medical standards to 1918. If that could be done, then an accurate comparison of the death rates could be made. As it is, every member of the band is playing from different sheets of music, so to speak.

One unquestionsble 'advantage' the 1918-1919 H1N1 flu virus had over SARS Cov-2 was its ability to mutate*. Comparatively, SARS Cov-2 is pretty stable. That can be both good & bad. It's good because the chances of it mutating to evade vaccines isn't as likely (but not impossible). Unfortunately, every mutation SARS Cov-2 has undertaken so far has been to become more contagious to a wider swath of the population while maintaining, if not enhancing, its lethality to this point. It's bad because it looks like it's going to take longer to mutate into a less lethal strain unlike the H1N1 flu.

*The ability to mutate doesn't automatically equate to a higher mortality rate. In fact, H1N1's ability to rapidly mutate was a major factor in the pandemic's end. It mutated into a less deadly strain in a fairly short amount of time. As I said before, SARS-Cov 2 has not displayed this lessening lethality characteristic so far.

 

Sure. Throw it all in there. But I'd still say 3x the population is by far the most important piece.

Could probably also make a case about less old people and maybe even about less people with underlying conditions. We keep a lot of people alive today that we likely couldn't back then. And those are the people that Covid has primarily attacked.

 

It's not even done yet. Do you have data backing up the less old people? I hope you aren't going to use life expectancy without the context of WW1 or higher infant mortality.

Also, as an appeal to full transparency and your ignorance, go look up who primarily died of the 1918 flu. The demographics most impacted are not the same and you are only demonstrating you are throwing stuff at the wall to support a conclusion you reached without actually reasoning into it. The 1918 uniquely affected healthy 20-40 year olds at a high rate, as it did under 5's and over 65's.

 

They are tripping over calling it what it was--death due to COVID.

 

Yeah, I got that. I'm saying they have no reason to. One young, healthy person dying from COVID doesn't go against anything anyone knowledgeable is or has been saying about the virus.

 

So who does that leave it going against?

 

Do you really need data to back up that there were less older people? Like, it's not hard to account for the things you mentioned when looking at life expectancy data.

I'm aware. Those age groups are additional context that your initial post lacked.

Most people read "more deaths" and think "worse." But I think most people would agree that a virus that kills a bunch of kids under 5 and a bunch of people age 20-40 is worse than one where over 75% of the deaths have been in people ages 65 and up. At least if the numbers are in any way comparable, which they are.

Edit: Hell - take it a step further and make it 95% have been ages 50+

 

Morons who think the % chance of death in young, healthy individuals is 0? People who don't understand statistics?

 

First, don't take everything I say in my replies to you as a personal rebuke. That reply wasn't. At all.. I was making a point wholly unrelated to your views on the seriousness of COVID. I think I usually make it pretty clear when I'm questioning the views of others. I'm not shy at all about that.

Second, both medicine & illness causing organisms evolve, absolutely. Bacterial superbugs evolved due to the over-prescribing of antibiotics & failure to complete full courses of antibiotic treatments. Folks often stop taking the meds as soon as they feel better instead of taking the full course which is designed to kill bacterial infections not just knock them back. These actions allow bacteria develop a resistance because they aren't completely eradicated. It's the same basic concept of taking allergy shots to build up a person's tolerance against allergens, or an opioid addict's body building up a tolerance requiring higher amounts (or a stronger opioid) to achieve an equal high from previous uses.

Finally, it's impossible to draw accurate conclusions from direct (quantitative) comparisons between events with different causes occurring in different time periods (even if the events are similar) without applying qualitative data. A direct comparison (this thus that) of mortality rates between the 1918-1919 pandemic & the 2020-? SARS-Cov 2 pandemic is impossible without taking into account the available healthcare (and other societal factors) of each time period. That's all I'm saying.