Pneumonia primer
When I was in my 40s and quite healthy, I got viral pneumonia. I caught it from my son and husband, who were likewise young and healthy. Fortunately, we all recovered uneventfully, but it still knocked us all out for a while and made an impression.
I’d already been impressed by pneumonia’s power, however. Twenty years earlier, a favorite relative had come within a hair of dying from pneumonia. He was in his twenties and healthy as a horse, but for reasons no one could understand, pneumonia swiftly overtook him, landed him in the hospital and the ICU, and it was touch-and-go for quite some time.
In more recent years I’ve seen pneumonia – and septic shock from pneumonia – kill another relative dear to me. One day she was suffering from a slight cold, and within twenty-four hours she was hospitalized and in a coma on what turned out to be her deathbed. She wasn’t young (60s) and had some pre-existing conditions, but it was nevertheless astounding and dismal to see how swiftly she was felled.
I saw something similar a decade ago with another friend, a woman who was healthy and in her early 50s and nearly died from H1N1. The difference is that she lived.
Why am I going into all of this? Because in all the talk about COVID-19 I don’t think most people appreciate that when it kills, it’s through the same basic mechanism as pneumonia, and this phenomenon is with us anyway. The only real question is whether COVID-19 is likely to cause a truly significant uptick in the number of people to whom this happens. But what is lost in all this is that pneumonia is always a killer, is always with us, and waxes and wanes with some better years and some worse ones. Somehow the world has managed to deal with this year after year without undue panic or canceling public get-togethers. And yet the risk is always there, as the cases I have described anecdotally illustrate.
This description of how COVID-19 can be fatal is no different from what often happens when flu kills through pneumonia or when the other various forms of pneumonia kill. The article says “The progression from mild or moderate to severe can occur ‘very, very quickly,’ said Bruce Aylward, a WHO assistant director-general.” Of course it can. That is not just a characteristic of COVID-19. It is a characteristic of pneumonia in general, which tends to ordinarily strike the same population most vulnerable to COVID-19: the elderly and those already weakened by serious illness.
To give you more of an epidemiological look at pneumonia, see this article, which focuses on cases in the UK in 2012, but has some worldwide data as well. In the UK, around 220,000 people are diagnosed with pneumonia a year. There was a spike in 2009 because of H1N1, from around 355 diagnosed per 100,000 people to 409 diagnosed per 100,000 people.
Pneumonia is much more common in the elderly, but there are a significant number of cases in all age groups, and the disease is generally characterized as “common.” The death toll from pneumonia in the UK in 2012 was 28,952. That means that if we assume the average 220,000 of diagnoses, the death rate for diagnosed cases (not hospitalized cases; diagnosed cases) in 2012 was 13%. That’s an extraordinarily high baseline toll that pneumonia takes of its many victims in a relatively ordinary year in the UK.
US statistics are different and significantly better, but still troubling: “About 1 million adults in the US seek care in a hospital due to pneumonia every year, and 50,000 die from this disease.” That’s a death rate of 5% in the hospitalized, significantly less than the rate in the UK but still high (and apples to oranges, because that high death rate in the UK was of the diagnosed rather than just the hospitalized, which makes that UK death rate even worse in comparison).
How many people in the US get pneumonia every year? Apparently, about 5.6 million, of which about 1 in 5 end up hospitalized with five percent of the hospitalized dying of the disease. Putting all those numbers together, the death rate in the US among those diagnosed would be 1%, and that represents a lot of people because a lot of people get the disease every year.
These UK and US statistics serve to point out how different death rates can be from the same illness even in supposedly developed countries in the West, depending on all sorts of factors including the state of the health care system. Similar country-to-country differentials can be expected with COVID-19, and similar differentials have already been found.
So, why don’t we close the schools and theaters and cancel parades because of all our pneumonia deaths? More to the point, why doesn’t the UK? Because we’re used to it; it’s a phenomenon that’s familiar to us and we don’t see any reason to change our lives because of it. If someone is particularly susceptible, that person would be more inclined to avoid crowds and to wash his or her hands very often, and those who are relatively healthy should also wash hands often and stay away from those with active illness, too, if possible. That’s just common sense.
But we can’t completely avoid the risk. And novel diseases such as H1N1 and COVID-19 have come along, and will continue to come along, with some frequency. Meanwhile, the old diseases march on.
Pneumonia is not one illness, anymore than cancer is one ailment. Pneumonia has myriad causes, bacterial and viral, just as cancers do.
So let us not lump them together, these pneumonias of myriad causes. Let us specify of which type/cause of pneumonia we are considering. They are different illnesses, look different on X-rays.
When I was a young intern, I had as a patient a young previously healthy woman with rather rare beta-strep bacterial pneumonia. That strep is still very sensitive to penicillin and we filled her full of IV penicillin, but she died.
Cicero:
Indeed, many types of pneumonia and many causes. But I don’t have access to statistics on each kind, and in order to compare generally to something like COVID-19 I had to take the whole as a unit.
But my intent was to make a reference to the fact that there are differing types of pneumonia when I wrote in my post: “when flu kills through pneumonia or when the other various forms of pneumonia kill.”
I have seen posts by physicians suggesting that the pneumonia vaccinations which older Americans receive may help us fight the Wuhan virus–caused pneumonia. Is this plausible? I really don’t understand how the pneumonia vaccinations work, since they don’t target the pathogen but rather the complication.
“Pneumonia – The old man’s friend.” With friends like that …
Kate, I asked about that somewhere, don’t remember where, but the response so “not really”. Don’t know why or if true.
I was going to mention pneumonia vaccination. I’ve always avoided flu vaccinations and the others, but the new pneumonia one caught my interest now that I’m older.
My recollection is that it covers about 60% of various types, maybe a bit more?
I thought I heard/read that one of the covid-19 pathways to death is via pneumonia at the end. So if one had already taken the pneumonia vaccine, and then contracted covid-19, would one’s probability of death be reduced?
Also, I wonder if drugs like remdesivir are effective with covid-19 after you’ve contracted the disease. It is supposed to be somewhat effective against a wide variety of deadly viruses.
I am repeatedly told that I do not understand, and should not scoff at the seriousness of the issue.
Well, I am sure it is serious, very serious in some parts of the world. But, I simply do not understand the level of hysteria and panic that is taking hold in America.
I am cynical enough to note that there are people with large megaphones who benefit from public anxiety. One of the megaphones proclaimed another scary announcement today, as a Poobah at WHO announced that we officially are facing a pandemic. Gee, the word pandemic has been thrown about for at least a couple of weeks; but, here it is again. A scary word, with an official definition that is much more limited than uninformed folk are led to believe.
More than the virus, I fear that the enhanced powers seized with gusto by government at all levels will never be fully relinquished when the crisis is over. As one wag is fond of saying; “never let a good crisis go to waste”.
An aside. Naturally, hand sanitizers are not to be found on local shelves. I ordered the individually wrapped Wet Ones that my wife is addicted to on Amazon. I then learned that they were priced at 4 times the normal price; and tried to cancel on principle– too late. The provider acknowledged my comment that I had detected gouging, by saying yes, but they are also gouged and must pass it along.
Since I am near the nursing home in Kirkland WA, where there have been most of the deaths in the state, I get a lot of news about what’s happening there. Several of those who died went from a slight cough to death from pneumonia in a matter of hours. They didn’t get them to the ER quick enough to do much for them. The worst part is that the remaining residents in that nursing home are confined there with inadequate staffing (several staff members are ill) and can only wait, hoping they don’t get sick. What a very helpless feeling that must be.
The Governor, Jay Inslee, has declared emergency measures for the three counties (King, Pierce, and Snohomish) where the outbreak is concentrated at this time. No big gatherings of over 250 people and even those smaller gatherings have to get permission from the health department to proceed. Schools are closing, many people are working from home, restaurants are suffering, and air travel is shrinking. The governor also suggested that elderly and compromised people stay at home as much as possible and avoid flying if at all possible. They have also announced special financial help for small businesses and employees – sick leave or unemployment pay for a period of time.
I don’t know how effective these steps will be. Hopefully, it will slow the rate of infection and keep businesses whole until this thing comes under control. At least they are doing something and that is reassuring to people.
The federal government is also working on some financial fixes. I watched a meeting that Trump had with some businessmen today and it reminded me of WWII. Everyone was willing to pitch in and help in anyway they could. Wow! Now if only the politicians would start pitching in as well. Not holding my breath, but maybe it could happen.
I think the answer to the question posed is that COVID-19 is highly transmissible. This was from a doctor on the show Outnumbered (Foxnews) this morning. She said that normal transmission rates for the flu are about one to two. With Coronavirus it’s more like seven to nine. (One person will infect seven to nine.) Within a week the number of cases in Colorado has gone from five to thirty three, and that number is exploding. I’m currently in Phoenix, and the number has about doubled in a few days to a total of nine. I would also guess that the reason that pneumonia causes much less panic is because there is a vaccine, and it’s recommended for people in high risk groups, so they are less vulnerable. For younger healthier people it’s not super fatal, although it will put you on your a$$. (I’ve had it twice, the first time when I was about 16)
“So, why don’t we close the schools and theaters and cancel parades because of all our pneumonia deaths?”
Perhaps it’s because familiarity breeds acceptance , if not content.
50,000 folks die every year in auto accidents but no reasonable person is suggesting that autos be banned.
30,000 or 20,000 die every year in the USA due to flue; but nobody is suggesting that schools, restaurants, cruise voyages, etc. be banned during flu season.
Because the corona virus is new and most certainly because the mainstream media – the propaganda arm of the demokrat party – it literally weaponizing the corona virus to assault, once again, Trump, folks are exhibiting a fear of the unknown that, most likely but which remains to be seen, that is all out of proportion to the EXISTING reality.
Rest assured, that if Obama was our president, today, the corona virus would be reported on the bottom of the last page in a tiny article of the Sunday NY Times and the mainstream media would be reporting it in the same manner as they are reporting the steady and inexorable removal and/or extermination of white farmers in South Africa.
The panic has won. By Friday the entire country will be shut down at the rate this is going.
Today is no fans at sporting events by Friday those events will be cancelled.
The greatest mass hysteria in history. Unbelievable.
I don’t know…. that’s where I am right now about this whole thing. This is a virus and antibiotics, to the best of my knowledge, do not work with viral infections and they are dangerous when they get in the lungs, this seems to be a known factor. I am in my mid-70’s, retired and have a few health conditions so I am mostly staying away from other folks as much as possible. My wife works for her daughter where they tutor young kids in math and they are keeping all surfaces disinfected and avoiding touching the youngsters, we are also in an area of Texas with no reported cases, yet.
At first I thought it was a media scare and now I am not so sure, I think younger people are going to come out fine however they might spread it to us older folks while they are coming down with it and getting over with it. I don’t know so I am going to be cautious and hope this stuff works it way through the system fairly fast and becomes just another overblown news story.
The whole country isn’t as loony as King County, I hope. The old Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times.”
why are conservatives so afraid of trump being bought down by this pandemic and insist on downplaying it hoping the market will be rattled as little as possible to ensure economy remains strong going into the election season? continuing to Downplay this threat posed by a virus that has shut down many countries just will not clam the market down. unless people feel that Trump is on top of the situation that even if the worst case scenario plays out we are going to be fine the dow will keep falling, keep downplaying it and making false equivalence to flu will not bring people back to sanity. Market has time to recover, Trump is done and reelection not recoverable if he allow things to get out of control under his admin, no one is going to fault overreaction, when you give people an impression that you don’t take it seriously or you value reelection over health of people such as not cancelling rallies and the outbreak gets out of control trump will be done and democrats sweep all branches of government.
om,
Yeah, maybe I’m being influenced by where I live. I live in Pierce County but the dramatic hysteria in the media and from government is truly amazing and it’s now getting to the point where people jump on you when you say this is getting to be too much.
The funny thing is I had a couple errands today and in stores you would never know anything was happening. Maybe they will call out the National Guard to keep people in line next. Tanks in the street. I’m only slightly kidding.
Dave,
It’s beyond Trump and his re-election, people are going to be losing jobs and businesses soon if this continues. And here in Washington they never say when these measures will end. The governor today went all authoritarian on us until the end of March and hinted it would be longer.
OldTexan:
I think it’s good to act cautiously, especially now when so much is unknown.
Kate; TommyJay:
As far as I can see, the pneumonia vaccines protect against 13 and 23 strains (there are 2 vaccines) of bacterial pneumonia. Bacterial pneumonia is different than viral pneumonia. COVID-19 is a viral illness, but there can be a bacterial overlay. So the answer is “no, it can’t protect against COVID-19 but it could protect against a bacterial pneumonia that gets into the picture.” At least, that’s my present understanding.
John Tyler:
Agreed.
Tom:
From the CDC (dated March 6) [emphasis mine]:
neo,
It seems one of the bigger problems with this entire thing is how easy it is to find info that is totally in opposition from official sounding people and then it spreads and spreads on social media and is usually spun by the media in the most dire clickbaity manner possible.
In my opinion social media is net negative on society but in times like this it is even more so because somehow everyone becomes an expert.
The trouble with “novel corona”, a media term, is that it is transmissible during the five to six days one is infected but without any symptoms and living a normal life, transmitting the virus to others. unknowingly.
The other trouble with novel corona is that we are adrift in a sea of uncertainty as to where the USA will be, illnesswise, in the next two-three months. There is no inherent reason to expect it will have the same seasonality as the four corona viruses we all live with, which cause the common cold. We just do not now know.
I have canceled domestic aviation travel plans for April. And the airlines are reducing the number of domestic flights as well as the international ones. CDC has advised all, yes, all cruises be canceled.
I just saw a Lou Dobbs TV spot with a Dr. Lipkin(?) who has just returned from China where he has been studying their covid-19 responses and their effectiveness.
He claims the big news is that if health care providers extract blood plasma from people who have recovered from the virus and then IV that plasma into people who are afflicted with the virus, the survival rate goes up dramatically.
I’m hopeful that techniques like this can take the mortality rate from something like 0.6% to a much lower level. Or drugs like remdesivir, or one of several competing anti-viral drugs, or 50 other ideas will make a big difference.
Tom:
About pneumonia and young people –
Pneumonia is the leading cause of children’s deaths in the world.
In the US it’s much better, but it’s still far from smooth sailing. 15% of pneumonia deaths in the US occur in the under-65 age group, and 3% of those occur in the under-45 age group. If you use the aforementioned statistic that 50,000 die from pneumonia in the US in a year, that means that 7,500 of those deaths are in people under 65, and 1,500 are under 45.
TommyJay:
I seem to recall they did something like that with ebola, with some success.
That would be great news, if true, because a lot of people with COVID-19 have mild symptoms and therefore there are already a pretty large group of survivors.
Griffin:
I very much agree with your 8:01 PM comment.
What’s more, a lot of people are more inclined to believe the rumors than the official word, like the CDC, because they just assume the authorities are lying and covering up.
Cicero:
Did you see this comment?
neo on March 11, 2020 at 7:56 pm said: (CDC data)
That’s a very nice chunk of information. The reproductive number is worrisome.
Neo:
Yes,I did. But I do not agree with the statement in its entirety. This portion concerns me with its waffling, and its error of duration of asymptomatic shedding:
“while we are learning that there are people who can shed COVID-19 virus 24-48 hours prior to symptom onset, at present, this does not appear to be a major driver of transmission. The reproductive number – the number of secondary infections generated from one infected individual – is understood to be between 2 and 2.5 for COVID-19 virus, higher than for influenza. However, estimates for both COVID-19 and influenza viruses are very context and time-specific, making direct comparisons more difficult.”
As I have mentioned before, I had H1N1 that turned into bacterial pneumonia and it hospitalized me for 5 days. After I was discharged I had a follow up visit with my doctor who told me he was happy I survived. I was a healthy 64 year old at the time. Use common sense, don’t panic (emotions can hamper your ability to withstand disease), and avoid running with the panicky mob, in fact head in the opposite direction.
There is some evidence that the inflammatory reaction in Covid-19 may, in the worst cases, be overactive, and that this can cause more alveolar lung damage than a more banal inflammatory response [like ARDS]. Accordingly, The FDA has allowed Sanofi and Regeneron, the makers of Actemra and Kevzara, both interleukin-6 receptor blockers, to commence clinical trials. This was in the WSJ today, 3/11/20. Remdesivir is another promising drug, made by Gilead Sciences. It is a nucleotide analog and was designed for Ebola and Marburg and was found to be hopeful in other single stranded RNA viruses.
I’m not saying we should panic — that doesn’t help — but this is not encouraging.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-10/coronavirus-conference-gets-canceled-because-of-coronavirus
Back on Why Panic is Popular, JimNorCal (March 10, 2020 at 8:48 pm) linked a lengthy list of tips for dealing with COVID. I was going to send it around my family, but decided to check on it first, as we all know that advice you get on the internet is worth what you pay for it.
The first half was cribbed from a supposed letter by a Chinese doctor, and has been debunked authenticity-wise, and no other source I’ve found repeats the same tips without being an obvious cadge from the rebutted one.
ICY want to see it, so you will recognize it elsewhere. It’s been passed around by Sean Hannity among others (I wish all bloggers / pundits were as conscientious as Neo is about checking the veracity of something before they post it, or at least adding cautions).
https://www.indiatvnews.com/news/india/fact-check-runny-nose-not-a-coronavirus-symptom-594364
The second half of that list checked out. I link it here from another source, and it has been dubbed authentic by Snopes (that is, the virologist claimed as the author really is), so I think it is probably good to know.
https://puritanboard.com/threads/dr-james-robb-virologist-on-safety-and-the-covid-19-virus.101602/
This does look reputable, from a German website:
https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-symptoms/a-52233885
(I note that MSN copied almost the entire post verbatim with no attribution. Tsk, tsk, tsk.)
A nicely written essay by VDH, drawing upon his expertise as a scholar of war.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0320/hanson031220.php3
Here’s from a former CDC virologist:
Dr. Rishi Desai, a former epidemic intelligence service officer at the CDC’s Division of Viral Diseases, told The Epoch Times that the most concerning difference between coronavirus and the flu is “how quickly COVID-19 spreads and its mortality rate.”
Desai didn’t dispute the official U.S. mortality rate.
“COVID-19’s R-naught is around 2.3, which means that for every one person that gets sick, 2.3 people will be infected,” Desai said via email. R-naught is also referred to as the basic reproduction number.
“During a bad flu season, influenza has an R-naught of 1.3 and a mortality rate of 0.1 percent,” he said.
*******
Plus, COVID-19’s incubation period is now being estimated as up to 15 days or more.
Kinda clashes with the March 6 memo from CDC, Neo.
It’s old news that the incubation period is as much as 24 days, probably depending on climate / temperature. Of course this was called fake news and dismissed in early February, but like other such matters it is now adopted as the official truth.
I’ve heard the R-naught is much higher than 2.3 but don’t know who to believe at this point. The health authorities were saying it was fake news in January that this thing spread from person to person. Fake news might just mean fast news.
Oh and the NBA season was just suspended. Lot of cash to throw away there for a common cold. Maybe governments and corporate interests have all just lost their marbles and therefore we can all sleep tight.
Thanks, Neo, about the pneumonia vaccine. I might, therefore, have some protection against a secondary bacterial pneumonia.
Thanks to Neo and commenters here. Links and discussion are very helpful. Let’s all hope that the anti-viral treatments test well, and soon, and that warmer weather will put this thing on hold until the fall, when treatments and vaccines might be ready.
And amen to the comments about social-media-driven hysteria. We’re not all going to die from this. Those of us who are older, and those who have existing health problems, would be wise to stay at home for a while until the infection rate ebbs.
I find these terms confusing:
“The World Health Organization estimated on Tuesday that the global death rate for the coronavirus is about 3.4%.
“The death rate of a disease is different from its mortality rate — the latter is the number of deaths out of the number of people in an at-risk population. A death rate is not a reflection of the likelihood that any given person will die if infected.
“According to Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services, the best estimates of the overall mortality rate for COVID-19 in the US are between 0.1% and 1%.”
If a death rate is not a reflection of the likelihood that any given person will die if infected, then what is it? And how does it differ from a mortality rate? What does a mortality rate of 0.1-1.0% mean? Wiki says “Mortality rate, or death rate, is a measure of the number of deaths in a particular population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit of time.” That fits my usual understanding of the use of the word “rate” to mean “incidence per unit of time,” as well as my understanding that “death” and “mortality” are equivalent. Is the quoted article just word salad?
(Oh, it was also called fake news that it spreads while not presenting symptoms. That’s also now the official truth).
There is some question how long COVID-19 can survive on inanimate surfaces. I have seen a variety of duration statements, but CDC hedges on data.
Cicero…
https://www.foxnews.com/health/coronavirus-live-plastic-stainless-steel-for-up-to-3-days
Matt Ridley says the Wolf is Loose, we’re NOT crying “wolf”.
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/coronavirus-is-the-wolf/
Lots of interesting reasons why he’s concerned, but he also doesn’t want panic; tho he does criticize Trump (like so many writers feel they must). He thinks climate change alarmism is also hurting the response to this real issue.
He had a good Feb. post about getting viruses from bats, and noting that this one is probably from a pangolin (from a bat?).
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/coronavirus-bats/
What is the maximum of non-panic, prudent carefulness? Travel bans, schools canceled (who pays for home care?), work from home for office workers. Lots more “wash your hands”.
Here’s a great twitter thread on the superiority of soap.
https://twitter.com/PalliThordarson/status/1236549305189597189
“if Obama was our president, today, the corona virus would be reported on the bottom of the last page in a tiny article of the Sunday NY Times”
I don’t think so. If you remember we had the Swine flu epidemic when Obama was president and according to the papers Obama did a wonderful job during that period. He was praised for his handling of the epidemic.
Tom Grey on March 12, 2020 at 1:41 pm said:
Matt Ridley says the Wolf is Loose, we’re NOT crying “wolf”.
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/coronavirus-is-the-wolf/
* * *
Well, that got MY attention!
I used to try posting a Fable with my comments on news stories, but it got so repetitious I had to stop. Whatever our politicians and the public does, Aesop had them nailed. (The idea that the governing Powers That Be of his age actually listened to his warnings and mended their ways is the make-believe part of the fables.)
Ridley’s bona fides do give some credence to his warning, although he doesn’t cite any specific research notes. He has to give a sop to the envirofascists, but it’s a small one (unsure if he believes in AGW aka Climate Change or not), but he absolutely correct in his chastisement of the scammers who are just in it for the money.
Several commenters have mentioned how the early prognostications of the media were pronounced as “Fake News”, but later turned out to be accurate.
Well, that might be so, but there is a reason for that.
Our main-stream media for years now has lied to us. They have lied with malice aforethought. They have lied to us when they didn’t even need to lie. And now, since Donald Trump came on the scene, it has gotten orders of magnitude worse.
As it is now, I don’t believe *anything* that comes from our MSM unless it can be verified independently. That’s just the way it is with me now.
Okay – looked up some of Ridley’s works on Climate Change – the sop was sarcasm IMHO.
Here is one article, old now, that seems to be representative of his position.
I mention it on the theory that COVID will be inevitably be linked to Climate Change, if that has not already happened.
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/adapting-to-climate-change/
Published on: Sunday, 06 April, 2014
“Global warming looks like it will be cheaper to cope with than to prevent”
It was a good essay, worth reading, and the governments & scammers totally ignored it, of course – coping would not give them their accustomed Return On Investment (their time, paper, and pixels in exchange for your money).
This one is mostly a long (long, long, long) list of the events attributed to Climate Change. That was in 2010, so I’m sure it’s gotten longer, although there may be an asymptotic limit as the number of affected events approaches the totality of life.
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/the-climate-blame-game/
Yep, the internet blames COVID on Climate Change – top result from Google today:
https://www.whatsorb.com/climate/corona-virus-flu-and-climate-change-is-there-a-connection
by: Joris Zuid February 25 2020
Second-top hit: more useful, in the context of what “useful” means in CC discussions.
https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-climate-change-pollution-environment-china-covid19-crisis/a-52647140
Date 05.03.2020 [European style; no time travel involved]
Author Ruby Russell
There were some good pictures.
I don’t have any problem with managing things so emergencies don’t become panicked crises, but (see Mr. Ridley above) spending our money on research for adapting to Climate Change beats the futile attempts at mitigation all hollow.
However, a “five to 10 year window” to “completely transform the economy” still sounds like Panic to me.
The problem with these death-rate numbers is that they make the Average Joe say, “Oh, if I get this stuff, I have a 3.4% chance of dying.”
But it’s nonsense.
The Average (otherwise-healthy) Joe who gets Wuhan Flu probably has near-zero chance of dying, if he’s 38 and doesn’t smoke. (I picked 38 because that’s the median age of the U.S. population.)
If a 95-year-old with emphysema gets it, well…that guy shouldn’t be making any long-term plans. (But he shouldn’t have been doing so anyway.)
The real challenge here is making sure we don’t overwhelm the healthcare system. Thus, if we could just slow down the rate-of-spread, things will be fine.
That means everyone staying home, ’cause the moment you’re within 10 feet of someone with the virus, you’re exposed, and many people with no symptoms (or very mild ones) are shedding the virus.
Ugh.
As I said in a different thread: The hot tip is to stay home, telecommute, order supplies to be delivered by Amazon drone, and watch Netflix.
One of the observations in Neo’s post that hasn’t been commented on is the difference in mortality rates among countries. One report today said that the government in Italy is advising critical care facilities to focus their efforts on younger victims and, if capacity is limited, exclude the elderly. The UK national health program has consistently devalued efforts to treat the elderly. When the elderly are most vulnerable to a disease, it is no surprise that the mortality rate in the UK (13%) will be much higher than here in the U.S.. Why would we want the Democratics Socialist health agenda?
One reference for Lenny’s comment.
https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/elderly-will-be-denied-intensive-care-as-coronavirus-overwhelms-italys-national-health-system-experts-warn/