By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Some commenters responding to this daily series providing some information about the Chinese virus have repeated what seems to have become something of a mantra among libertarians who, understandably, dislike the idea of widespread lockdowns, with the loss of freedom and the economic damage that they entail. That mantra is that the Chinese virus is no more infections or no more fatal than flu, and that if we had allowed everyone to acquire immunity by catching the infection and throwing it off all would be well.
Look at today’s graph. Though the downtrend in the daily compound growth rate in total confirmed cases now appears well established, that growth rate is still very high, averaging around 8% globally outside China and occupied Tibet, where the numbers are unreliable.
The red curve shows the case growth rate for the world excluding China. If the 8% daily growth rate were to continue, yesterday’s 1,430,919 confirmed cases (many of which tend to be those serious enough to have come to the authorities’ attention, since testing is still occurring on a tiny scale in most countries) would have risen to nearly 8 million by the end of April, and more than 80 million by the end of May.
It is important, therefore, to ensure that the now well established downtrend is maintained. That is why, for the time being, governments will be keeping lockdowns in place. It would be irresponsible to do otherwise.
Of course, one might legitimately argue that, if the Chinese virus were really no worse than flu, the crippling social and economic cost of lockdowns would be unjustifiable.
But governments cannot afford to make policy on the assumption, perhaps a little too carelessly made by some commenters here, that the virus is no more dangerous and no more infectious than flu.
Here, then, to help us to begin to answer that important question, are some tolerably reliable, real-world data. I am grateful to the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Center in London for having made details from its Case Mix Programme Database available. The Case Mix Programme is the national clinical audit of patient outcomes from adult critical care.
The Center has recently issued a report on all confirmed UK cases reported to it up to midday on 3 April, just a few days ago. Critical care units notify the Center as soon as they have admitted any patient with confirmed Chinese virus, together with demographics, initial physiological state, organ support and eventual outcome.
The report concerns 2249 patients, whose mean age at admission was 60 years, compared with 58 years for 4759 patients with non-COVID-19 viral pneumonia, most of them caused by flu, over the three complete years 2017-2019.
Of the 2249 patients, 346 (15%) have died, 344 (15%) have been discharged alive, and 1559 (69%) are still in critical care. The case fatality rate, as a fraction of all closed cases admitted to intensive care, is thus a little over 50%, compared with only 22% for the non-COVID viral pneumonias of the past three years. In each age-group (under 50, 50-69 and 70+), the percentage of patients admitted to critical care with the Chinese virus and subsequently dying in hospital is at least twice the percentage of critical-care patients with other viral pneumonias over the previous three years.
Among those requiring ventilation, two-thirds die by the end of their critical care and only one-third survive. Therefore, the case fatality rate for closed cases where ventilation was required is more than 67%, compared with only 16% for non-COVID viral pneumonia cases requiring ventilation.
Worse, advanced respiratory support for Chinese-virus cases is typically maintained for between 4 and 9 days (average 6 days), while it is not needed at all in non-COVID-19 viral-pneumonia cases, which require only basic respiratory support, and require it only for 2-4 days (average 3 days). The data are similar for cardiovascular support, and for renal support. The Chinese-virus cases tend to require advanced rather than basic support, and to require it for twice as long. And yet, even after all that extra care, the case fatality rate is many times higher than for non-COVID viral pneumonias.
On the assumption that about half of all this year’s critical cases of seasonal viral pneumonia would have occurred by now, and making no allowance for any further exponential growth in Chinese-virus cases in intensive care, and assuming that the summer will stop the virus causing critical cases (an assumption that the authorities, rightly, do not regard themselves as being in any position to make yet), there are approximately three times as many serious Chinese-virus cases than all other viral pneumonias combined, including those caused by flu, in a typical year, and at least twice as many of these will die than with other serious viral pneumonia cases.
Thus, the Chinese virus is six times more fatal than pre-existing viral pneumonias, including those caused by flu.
In the past three years, some 46% of viral-pneumonia cases were female and 54% male. With the Chinese virus, however, only 27% are female and 63% are male.
The report also considers ethnicity. About four-fifths of the UK population is White, but only two-thirds of the critical cases to date are Whites. Blacks, in particular, are three times over-represented in intensive care: they represent one case in seven, but are only one in 20 of the population.
Body mass index was also studied, but the number of cases in the below-normal, normal, overweight, obese and morbidly obese categories is not far out of line with the general population, two-thirds of whom are overweight or obese. Some 72% of intensive-care Chinese-virus cases are overweight or obese.
Interestingly, the number of cases with cardiovascular, respiratory, renal, hepatic, cancerous or immunocompromised comorbidities was quite small. In all these categories, it was less than for the usual viral pneumonias over the past three years.
In the past three years, non-COVID viral pneumonias have put 43% of patients on to ventilators within the first 24 hours. The Chinese virus, however, is worse: it puts 63% on to ventilators within the first 24 hours. Therefore, governments planning hospital capacity for Chinese-virus cases must make extra allowance for the greater demands, both in advanced rather than basic care and in days of treatment, than other viral-pneumonia cases.
The doctor through whom I came upon these figures, who has himself suffered with the Chinese virus and has recovered, is very angry that for political reasons those who understandably dislike lockdowns have been maintaining, contrary to the evidence, that the Chinese virus is “no worse than flu”.
Be in no doubt. This disease is a lot worse than flu. It puts more people into intensive care, where they require costlier and more advanced treatment, where they will be in intensive care for twice the time required by other viral pneumonia-patients, and where they are more than twice as likely to die as those other patients.
So don’t dismiss it lightly. Not any more. Wash hands often. Wear full-face masks when out of doors or away from home. Take Vitamin D3 daily. Be safe.
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This is taking our argument entirely out of context. You are basically trying to say that we are claiming that deaths from traffic accidents are not bad, in fact they aren’t even real. No one has evah died in a vehicle! Nope, that’s not what we’re arguing obviously. We’re saying that this is exactly like the flu in its order of magnitude and overall impact on society – the panic is self induced and not from the virus itself.
We’re also not saying that this novel virus will have the exact same death rate as decades old viruses where most have antibodies and for which there are vaccines. How about comparing this to the 1957-58 influenza outbreak, that would be apples to apples. That single virus was estimated to have killed over 100,000 US citizens and millions worldwide, same for the 1968 novel influenza virus. So far SARS-COV2 is just shy of 90,000 deaths worldwide (with many more hosts available now) and we’re approaching the time of year when these things dwindle on their own – anyone want to make bets whether this will reach the numbers of the 58 or 68 influenza pandemics? I don’t remember a complete shutdown of society then. And as far as the 2009 H1N1 strain, it didn’t take nearly as many lives as the previous influenza pandemics and that is attributed to an estimated 60% of the population already having the antibodies to fight it, something they probably wouldn’t have had if global shutdowns had been the modus operandi of the past.
We’re saying that the Chicken Little approach is not intelligent or wise in the long run. The repercussions from a global depression could be far worse than this novel virus. It’s going to survive us quarantining ourselves despite the hopeful delusions of some “experts” so ultimately we are replacing short term bad times and replacing them with long term negative consequences. Some of the negative consequences of the Great Depression are stuck with us to this day.
Nature culling the herd.
You can dodge a great many of nature’s bullets for a long while but sooner or later the one with your name will show up.
The trick is to write your own name on bullets you use. That way there’s less chance of there being another bullet with your name on…
“But governments cannot afford to make policy on the assumption, perhaps a little too carelessly made by some commenters here, that the virus is no more dangerous and no more infectious than flu.”
Even worse to make disastrous policies based on bad/incomplete/unknown data on advice from a tiny cabal of ‘experts’ and ‘modelers’ with an appalling history of being completely wrong.
The virus is probably more infectious than flu, that does not make it dangerous. We simply do not know how dangerous it is because nobody knows the true extent of asymptomatic infections. If as suspected that is exceptionally high, then it is clearly not that dangerous – and the vast majority of deaths would have occurred anyway very shortly – thousands of people are not being robbed of years of healthy life.
There is STILL little evidence of a massive uptick in mortality rates overall.
Sniff test says there has been a massive and disastrous over reaction.
I am one of those who currently believe that it is not dissimilar to flu. I hold this belief from following the Total Mortality stats alone, as I believe that the infected cases data and the reported ‘Covid deaths’ are too unreliable to use in calculations.
I would not be surprised to find that Covid makes people more ill on average than a ‘standard’ flu – no one will have any residual immunity to this virus, and there will be less experience of treating it. But I would see this as a ‘one-off’ impact. And note that flu is not a benign disease – it kills many people every year. Saying that Covid is ‘ like flu’ should not be construed to me an that it will not kill horribly.
I will estimate its similarity on the basis of mortality figures alone. If it is truly 6 times worse than flu, we should see some major death rates. At the moment I do not see these – even the worst-affected places seem to be showing Total Mortality comparable to a flu outbreak.
“I will estimate its similarity on the basis of mortality figures alone. If it is truly 6 times worse than flu, we should see some major death rates.”
No, because the quarantines will cut deaths from accidents and ordinary flu dramatically. That cut must be added back in to get the true lethality of Covid-19.
“I will estimate its similarity on the basis of mortality figures alone. ”
Wrong, because the quarantines will halve the ordinary death rates from accidents and everyday flu. That halving must be compensated for to compute the true legality of Covid-19.
It is like a flu. It is like a flu that we have no natural immunity to in the general population. All the other flu strains circulate in the population and this one doesn’t, because it has primarily been circulating only in Intermediate Horseshoe Bats. So if you happen to be a bat, you will be fine. If not, then when you are exposed, you will be infected.
This makes it very contagious, and it will create local problems, where so many people are sick at once that the system cannot provide care for some, or many. So far we have managed this because the cities create a good environment for spreading the disease. But they also have more hospital resources in total. They don’t have enough for letting everyone get sick at once.
We are prepared for what we see regularly. This is not what we see regularly. It would be better if we could round up those that are vulnerable to bad outcomes, and isolate them from the public. We have no ability to do that safely. Without isolation from this virus they will die in large numbers. So a decision was made. It is the choice of two bad choices.
When you are not prepared for a rare event you have to do the best you can and live with the consequences. I think we have to be cautious because there are too many unknowns. And saturating the medical system, and letting people die without care is the likely cause of letting this run it’s course. I don’t think anyone knows how manageable or chaotic that would be. If we chose that path we would be stuck with it. It would be a roller coaster where you have no ability to change course until the ride stops.
We better find out, because we don’t know if the origin of this virus is natural, accidental, or criminal.
Rounding up people sounds like a bad idea.
This is the opposite of a quarantine or isolation.
One infected person involved in the roundup infects one of the people, who are then all kept in one place?
Bad idea.
Keep people separate and isolated.
I didn’t phrase that as clear as I should. Many elderly are already in living arrangements dedicated to older people. They have staff that is working there that is not living there. There would need to be greater care on who came in contact with them, but it is manageable.
Many elderly, or older people with health issues are living in communities where they are in daily contact with younger people and/or healthier people. That is the group that you cannot protect if you let this virus burn through the public. And I am NOT advocating rounding anyone up. I am thinking about how difficult any plausible solution would be. And there are no solutions that make more sense than what we are currently doing.
If we were prepared, I think we could have made it possible for most businesses to stay open. Taiwan, Japan and South Korea are the models for this. They got hit harder by SARS and were better prepared, and more alert to threat.
Yeah, nursing homes are a special case.
I have no idea what to say about that.
The whole situation is a huge mess.
One thing that has occurred to me is…a lot of places have wound up with similar restrictions, and yet there are many that are looking at what is happening where they live as if someone or some group of someones has made a huge mistake.
That may be, but it seems like a lot of people have made the same mistake if true.
I do not see how any businesses could conduct business as usual even if they wanted to.
Every time someone tests positive it seems they need to send everyone home and disinfect the building.
That could be endless, fatally disruptive, and not help in the end. Ad the how long before business owners get sued?
I am now waiting for another shoe to drop.
Seems like something has to happen.
It’s just like flu, only it makes your lungs fill up with fluid and you drown.
Er…that’s what flu does. Don’t think that flu is benign – it’s one of the biggest killer diseases in the world….
It’s just that most people are fairly immune to most strains of it, so the people it kills are usually the old. Regularly each winter it kills millions of old folk. The point is that we’ve got used to that, so we never report it, or even think about it…
Then where did all those ventilators come from?
oh dear lord:
The claim “it’s no worse than the flu” did not start out to mean that the disease doesn’t hurt worse, or kill differently, than any of the asian flues. It meant that covid-19 mainly kills/hurts the people who would otherwise be at high risk fro the flu. Look a the numbers through the lens of hospital program funding and you see that almost every covid-19 death is matched by a reduction in death due to flu or co-morbidity factors. Thus “no worse than the flu” now means that total national death rates are not unusually high.
I do appreciate Christopher Monckton’s position on this subject and I do not take it lightly. This is a very serious situation in the world for which we must take action. The other side of the argument is best supported by Willis Eschenbach’s post yesterday. The Bayesian analysis of the situation based upon all of the data comes down to the cost/benefit of shutting down the economy. I will leave that for others to assess but with the following observations and as an individual tax payer, I have no power and no control upon the whole situation and can only comment.
The CDC budget for infectious disease prevention, foreign disease prevention, and other factors associated with a pandemic response is roughly 4 Billion Dollars a year. Additionally, each state carries a similar budget item. Worldwide, who knows how much has been spent on pandemic preparedness over the last 10 years. I will call it 1/2 Trillion dollars as a rough estimate. I don’t know, I’m just throwing a number out. Given that expense, the world seems completely unprepared for COVID-19. So, throw that cost out the window.
As Willis pointed out, the cost of shutdown of the economy in California is a Trillion dollars. Some have argued that all is not lost, so call it ½ Trillion dollars. Throw that out the window.
Bailouts in the US will probably be in the 4 Trillion dollar neighborhood. Completely magic money that comes from nowhere since we are already at a 1Trillion dollar deficit every year. But, given the cost of bailout over 2 months, you have to add in the loss of GDP during that period. Call it another ½ Trillion dollars above California’s as a guess.
So lots and lots of losses/costs worldwide. The benefit is that maybe a lot of lives were saved. Those lives saved are in the majority non-producers based upon the data of who is dying from COVID-19. If a proper pandemic response was in place in the majority of places, perhaps a full shutdown might have been avoided. Perhaps.
This I hope will never happen like this again. We all individually should be better prepared and the governments in charge of this area of preparedness should be held accountable, perhaps with an annual report on readiness. Perhaps businesses should have disaster plans in place to transition to a pandemic response economy. I don’t know, just my opinion.
Thank you Christopher and Willis for your wonderful additions to this subject. I enjoy hearing from both of you. I think Christopher’s analysis on feedback sensitivity to CO2 doubling is right and should be on the forefront of the Climate discussion. Unfortunately, when an influential person makes comments such as the Pope has, God bless him, tying the presence of the virus to global warming, we all have much more work to do.
• Monckton of Brenchley April 8, 2020 at 3:40 am
“In response to Mr Nelson, I do not advocate lockdowns.”
Above post: “That is why, for the time being, governments will be keeping lockdowns in place. It would be irresponsible to do otherwise.”
I twice submitted the following for the April 8 post but it never appeared.
I always appreciate Lord Monckton’s contribution and usually find his arguments persuasive. IMHO this lockdown is downright wrong.
A lockdown is an “extreme action and extreme actions require extreme proof.” Data supporting the claim that COVID-19 is an extreme virus are mostly based on assumptions and, gasp, computer models. Extreme consequences, E.G deaths, not infections, seem a more appropriate criteria for extreme action. On average, the communicable disease tuberculosis , kills 1,100,000 people every year. What is the threshold in lives per year, for taking extreme action? I would hope that whatever number is chosen is higher than 1,100,000.
In his April 4th post, Lord Monckton said “The Chinese virus is considerable more infections and more fatal than HIV,” which kills 770,000 every year. While arguable that statement may be accurate, I don’t think there is sufficient data to know.
In the US, arguments for a lockdown were based on “flattening the curve,” not saving lives. It is my understanding (misunderstanding?) that, barring a vaccination or other medical interventions, the virus will be around for a long time and sooner or later 60-80% will be infected. Although my crystal ball is cloudy, as of April 9, worldwide, less that 100,000 have died. I think a better argument can be made that substantially less than 1M will die than over 1.1M will die. Whatever the number, there will be arguing for years about how effective the lockdown has been vs. other actions.
The argument “Would it not be better to allow everyone to acquire immunity, and to accept the resulting loss of life,” is a strawman argument. It is not an either/or choice. As South Korea and Sweden have shown, you can still do targeted quarantines, social distancing, testing, and take other remedial action without a lockdown. Taking your comment “…governments will be keeping lockdowns in place. It would be irresponsible to do otherwise” literally, Sweden and South Korea seem to qualify as being “irresponsible.”
Calls for a lockdown are from those least effected. I doubt those who live paycheck-to-paycheck or customer-to-customer concur that a lockdown is a good tradeoff. In the US the estimates are that up to 20M people will lose their income. Many will lose their home and family, will not be able to afford going to a doctor, will turn to crime or drugs, or commit suicide. Arguable, poverty is the #1 cause of death. The cost to those most effected by the lockdown must be considered in addition to the benefits to those of us who are least effected.
I do find this series of posts to be very informative and helpful and I thank Lord Monckton for his work.
Is it 27-73 or 37-63?
The difference are the “don’t know” gender.
You are forgetting the 10% of trannies, “non-binaries” and cross-dressers 😉
The remaining 10% are non-binary.
Seriously? It was a serious question and I would think it must be a typo.
From personal experience this is worse than the flu or pneumonia. Treat it with 19th century medicine. Go to bed immediately and sleep round the clock and sweat it out until 2 weeks after you think you are cured.
And die of pneumonia?
If the US peaks this week, total deaths will end up around 30-40K. Which will put us below the 2017/2018 flu season, which was 40K above average.
The testing we need right now is antibody testing. Since NYC has kept their subways open, I suspect that they are approaching herd immunity. Only way to confirm is with the tests.
Here’s how I look at it. Whether it is or is not worse than seasonal flu does not matter for most of the population. My prediction is that in ten years we will look back at this and find the mitigation measures in the US were mostly ineffective and the at risk people perished or were saved mostly by their own preventative measures, not silly half cocked quarantine directives from bureaucrats. Also, I suspect we will find there was a huge psychological and economic toll on working class people. A toll that cannot justify the results. Anyone advocating for a continued lock down is someone without worry about putting food on the table and keeping a roof over their heads. This being the very wealthy and the non working poor.
On a lighter note, I think we all have some good laughs over the stupidity of some of these actions. For instance, where I live they shut down the beaches two weeks ago. Prior to the shutdown you’d find family groups spread out all over the very large areas. Now when you go beachside, you find large groups of people huddled up along the boardwalk. So they were pushed off the large open space and relegated to the narrow, cramped area. So what did the beach closure accomplish?
“So don’t dismiss it lightly. Not any more. Wash hands often. Wear full-face masks when out of doors or away from home. Take Vitamin D3 daily. Be safe.”
Their Doubt is deadly.
Well whatever you believe about the stats or do about avoiding Covid19 you should at least ensure your household has a reliable body thermometer and an inexpensive fingertip pulse oximeter. At least then you can triage yourself with rhinovirus, coronavirus, laryngitis, pharyngitis and influenza infection symptoms you may possibly be afflicted with amongst Covid19 ones perhaps. That’s because you want to be able to detect fever and falling haemoglobin oxygen levels. Otherwise you’ll be flying blind and and panicking bothering very busy medicos unnecessarily with every sniffle cough and wheeze.
I’d say that this is one time when the hypochondriacs are avoiding hospitals, which is a good thing. I’d hate to see how much time and money is wasted on people who just want a little attention. Can’t they learn to eat Tide Pods, like the cool kids?
Fever is too non-specific, pyrexia may indicate: Measles, Rubella, Scarlet fever, Chickenpox (before spots appear), Tonsillitis, Covid19, influenza, cellulitis, ear infection, sepsis
Temperature 95% for non-COPD – slightly more specific than temperature
Low saturations is a red flag could indicate sepsis, heart failure, pneumonia, covid 19
If person unable to complete long sentences then red flag
If person has audible wheeze or stridor then red flag
Sats probe also measure pulse: >90 is a yellow flag (occurs as a result of any infection) > 130 is a red flag
See: https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng51/resources/algorithms-and-risk-stratification-tables-compiled-version-2551488301
Just my opinion but it seems to me that for some the possibility of a killer global virus emerging in modernity was remote. Others are not familiar with the statistics of death (all death not those that a political useful) Those that have a passing knowledge of the history of pandemic disease/viruses and can google global morality rates have context for the coronavirus. Those that solely rely on predictive models and the assessments of Heath Inc. (public and private) are at a disadvantage
see if I can sneak any of this past the bad word filter….
blacks more vulnerable…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/04/07/coronavirus-is-infecting-killing-black-americans-an-alarmingly-high-rate-post-analysis-shows/?arc404=true
blacks 70% of cases….
https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/2020-04-07/black-people-are-disproportionately-dying-from-coronavirus
Anything including the K-word will get moderation. S-K-I-L-L is illegal here.
Likewise the name of the late 20th c. British PM Tony B. L-I-AR will fail. Never say you are famili-a-r with a certain subject.
These filters really need looking at but that request gets ignored.
“…..there are approximately three times as many serious Chinese-virus cases than all other viral pneumonias combined, including those caused by flu, in a typical year, and at least twice as many of these will die than with other serious viral pneumonia cases. Thus, the Chinese virus is six times more fatal than pre-existing viral pneumonias, including those caused by flu….”
This looks like a testable prediction. The problem is that there are no ‘typical flu years’. There are bad years, moderate ones and mild ones. You can get from 1000 to 30,000 (round estimates) deaths in the UK from flu in a year, and there are probably even more extreme outliers.
So 6000 could be 6 times worse than flu, and yet would be considered mild. 180,000 dead would certainly be a major pandemic – assuming we are half-way through the course that would be equivalent to the total world deaths. I wonder which 6x is meant here?
“The problem is that there are no ‘typical flu years’. There are bad years, moderate ones and mild ones.”
Bingo.
Most people with the “its just flu”, are also in the “flu is really a bad cold anyway” folder (which can be filed in the circular bin), and are probably vaguely remembering a mild season, spread over 6 months and the entire planet.
Rough guess is that respiratory issues (flu) are responsible for about 1/4 of all deaths? Probably matching cancer?
It’s odd that people think ‘it’s just flu’, and not ‘it’s just cancer’….
In a world population of 7.8 billion, 1,544,078 have caught corona and 91,000 died.
In the last 5 months the world’s population has increase 20 million.
Wait until this virus hits the underdeveloped world .
It will be catastrophic .
If they are actually able to test or record the numbers .
The flu is seasonal and already has semi-immunity and vaccines .
This virus is unstoppable apart from draconian self isolation or a vaccine /cure is found .
Economies are stuffed worldwide and that could end up being far worse for all than trying to combat this.
1) Flu does not often lead to SARS (which is a list of symptoms and measurements). SARS is more serious than most bacterial pneumonia.
2) COVID-19 is in addition to the flu.
3) With the flattened curve each city’s or region’s spike can be handled.
We need published information by all the expert epidemiologists showing expected death-rate if you get it. Those in my age group are old, not stupid. We know enough to isolate until the risk of even getting it at all in our area is low. Right now when there is little growth nearby it is safe enough for me; similar to the flu risk each season. It might not be safe enough for someone else my age. I am libertarian enough to want to give the entire population to make individual decisions better than any level of government.
Government’s role? Provide all the consensus, yes, and, importantly, air the alternatives and why that person thinks it’s best.
With #antibody testing we could even all who have the antibodies to go back to work even if they wouldn’t have taken the risk untested. No certificate needed.
In keeping my own rough tally, I’ve found that so far in New York State, the number of deaths there attributed to COVID-19 are 35% higher than the average ANNUAL deaths attributed to flu/pneumonia and 30% higher than the HIGHEST number of deaths from this cause over the past five years. These residuals give a rough idea of the virulence of COVID-19 vs. routine influenza infections. Note, that we are only into the 14th week of the year, whereas the averages are annual figures.
There’s a lot of confusion about this virus and whether it is Cold or Flu. Well, there is no absolute and definitive scientific definition. It’s worth mentioning at this point that the W.H.O. chart for the differences between Coronavirus, Cold and Influenza show 3 distinct profiles and that is not to say we are all fans of W.H.O.
Colds are basically a disruption of the hundred plus bacteria and virus that exist in every human mouth, and they exist in some degree of harmony and perhaps symbiotically until a volatile pathogen upsets the balance. The resulting upset causes a ‘head cold’ and the body tries to expel the newcomer. This can be replicated by rapidly changing hot to cold weather conditions which also upsets the balance. This also explains the Meningitis outbreaks that often occur at start of term in Universities where new students introduce new pathogens , meningococcal bacterium is another common resident of the mouth .
Influenza is more associated with feeling dreadful with some aches and pains in the limbs, perhaps more still with fever.
So it is possible that Covid19 is neither cold nor flu.
“The common cold is a viral infection of the upper respiratory tract. The most commonly implicated virus is a rhinovirus (30–80%), a type of picornavirus with 99 known serotypes. Other commonly implicated viruses include human coronaviruses (≈ 15%)…”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cold
As I said, changing temperatures can change the balance and induce a cold. No newcomer is required, just an imbalance of the resident bacteria and virus.
A better title would be:
‘It should be worse than flu, but is it?’
‘Unexpectedly Higher Morbidity and Mortality of Hospitalized Elderly Patients Associated with Rhinovirus Compared with Influenza Virus Respiratory Tract Infection’
International Journal of Molecular Sciences Feb 2017
It’s not the flu… but it’s not a scarlet letter, either.
(Yes, I like Mr. Monckton’s personal protection, however, in some states, you theoretically can’t even ride a motorcycle.)
The response to it should be decentralized because different localities are subject to different dynamics (New York City is different from rural Wyoming, as is London from say, the north of Scotland.).
If you are in a vulnerable population (old with underlying health conditions) it’s smart to take suitable precautions such as self-isolation.
Several states do not have any lock-down and the infection rate is tolerable, other states have permissive orders where generally many businesses are open, except specific, numerated businesses, which are ordered closed (restaurants & bars), other states have restrictive orders where theoretically nothing is allowed except specific, numerated businesses deemed essential and you can’t even go outside unless you have essential business to conduct.
In the U.S.A., the death rate has been way over predicted, many times over. In fact, comparing our average total death rate for the last four years for March, it turns out we had roughly 15,000 less deaths this March than in the four proceeding Marches.
Quite possibly, that has something to due with social distancing decreasing the number of deaths from flu-like symptoms.
It’s not clear what the death rate is from the Hubie province, Wuhan city virus.
In some locals it is, in my opinion, appropriate to open businesses and practice social distancing at the same time (without having large gatherings like sporting events or crowded festivals).
We can walk & chew gum at the same time without wrecking our economy.
I wouldn’t call myself a libertarian, I’d call myself a realist that balances competing interests based on local conditions.
In my neck of the woods, I say, “Open the economy, get people working again!”
In London or New York City, the answer is different.
Again, it’s not the flue, but it’s not a scarlet letter, either.