Coronavirus may have spread undetected for weeks in U.S.
boston.com
boston.com
My wife just told me that two of her co-workers were in Wuhan in Late November visiting a factory and they both got the flu in Wuhan.
One guy A, tested negative for the flu, he was sick for 6 weeks, he would start to feel better than get sicker. His doctor told him that he had no idea what was wrong with him. The guy A, said it was the strangest flu he ever had. Over the 6 weeks he was sick he worked from home the entire time and was only working part time for most of those 6 weeks because of how bad he felt.
The other guy B, I don't know if B was tested for the flu, was sicker than A, and he was sick for 8 weeks. He also worked from home for the entire time, my wife doesn't work closely with B, so she's not sure how much time he missed during those 6 weeks.
I really think there's something to this. In my part of So Cal, people have been talking about a "recurrent flu" that keeps getting better and relapsing at about 2-week intervals. Everybody I know has had something like that.
I think we're going to find out that we've already had covid-19, or there's another very nasty bug out there.
By having a blood sample taken (the classic way), or was this one of the new quick-tests that the German Wikipedia article mentions?
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS-CoV-2#Schnelltests
MSN: https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/coronavirus-outbreak-ne...
It would make sense for the doctor not to know what it was at that time. Covid-19 wasn’t a concern until January.
We didn’t have these quick tests until ~February.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/world/asia/coronavirus-tr...
If you start multiplying small numbers together, they get real small real quick.
No one wants to stand up and call hysteria for what it is. It’s easier to go with the flow and cancel events out of an “abundance of caution.”
Hysteria is bad, but for other reasons.
So when you say “upwards” of 5% of cases require the ICU, this is potentially very misleading. Stating that upwards of 5% of hospital cases require the ICU may be true, but now you must not try to extrapolate that value any further until you can tell me definitively what percentage of infections result in hospitalization? 1 in 5? 1 in 20?
I won’t get into debating R0 values because they are nearly impossible not to misuse. For example, COVID-19 does not have just one R0 value. R0 changes radically based on actual conditions on the ground, often day to day.
The R0 value of COVID in a cult church in South Korea may be actually 1,000 while the R0 globally over the entire course of this news cycle might be 1.2.
No, they are accurate as far as I know and I've been following this thing with some dedication since before it was discussed in the media because of relatively close ties to China.
> You forgot the most important qualifier, which is that the denominator is some fraction (potentially small fraction) of the total number infected.
You are misrepresenting the OP's words. He said 'of cases', that is the denominator right there. That we don't know all cases is something that everybody takes as a given. But just like we don't know all cases we also don't know all of the dead. The same happened with the swine flu, with SARS and with every other epidemic so far. Only afterwards, sometimes more than a year later do we have all the numbers. And sometimes those end up substantially higher than the original estimate both for the number of infected people as well as for the number of people that end up dead.
> So when you say “upwards” of 5% of cases require the ICU, this is potentially very misleading.
Upwards of 5% of the known cases. But that's assumed, if we don't know someone is infected then they by definition won't require ICU level care.
> Stating that upwards of 5% of hospital cases require the ICU may be true, but now you must not try to extrapolate that value any further until you can tell me definitively what percentage of infections result in hospitalization? 1 in 5? 1 in 20?
They don't need to tell you anything 'definitely' to be allowed to speak their mind. And as far as I'm informed that 5% rate is on the money. So, instead, the onus is on you to prove that less than 5% of the people infected that require care require ICU care. I don't think you are able to do that but I will happily take good news at this point if properly sourced.
> I won’t get into debating R0 values because they are nearly impossible not to misuse.
Agreed.
> For example, COVID-19 does not have just one R0 value. R0 changes radically based on actual conditions on the ground, often day to day.
> The R0 value of COVID in a cult church in South Korea may be actually 1,000 while the R0 globally over the entire course of this news cycle might be 1.2.
True, but there are averages and even the WHO seems to place the number at > 3 at this point in time. That is already a pretty high number, even when taking all the care in the world to ensure it doesn't spread. Of course the criminals in Korea that hope to bring about the end times in some kind of warped self fulfilling religious prophesy are going to skew that number upwards. But in Iran and Italy there was no such cult, and their numbers are very much in line with the development in Korea. And since we're mentioning Iran now, there are lots of informal reports that the situation there is much worse then officially reported, with the number of high officials there infected this - unfortunately - isn't hard to believe at all.
I think you may be giving OP too much credit with their use of “cases” implying hospital cases (which is the 5% ICU number, it is not 5% of infections require the ICU) I’m happy if we are agreeing and will leave it at that.
> Upwards of 5% of the known cases. But that's assumed, if we don't know someone is infected then they by definition won't require ICU level care.
You are still making too strong of a statement. In the study last week from NEJM of 1099 hospital patients around China that found that 90% plus were diagnosed with pneumonia, and 5% were admitted to the ICU. Case fatality rate was 1.4%. [1]
It is absolutely not 5% of “known” cases. China turned anybody not seriously ill from the hospitals back home. So we actually do know there are a large number of uncounted mild (and even asymptomatic) cases.
It is 5% of serious hospital cases going on to the ICU. This is not my claim, this is straight from the latest issue of the NEJM.
Also, I didn’t say anyone couldn’t speak their mind. But I said if you do try extrapolating a sub-population percentage and multiplying by world population, it would be a serious miscalculation. That’s why I think it’s important (crucial) to clearly identify the sub-population when you state the percentage. Calling a sub-population dealing with hospital admittances the “known” cases is not clearly stating identifying the patient population.
I don’t think HN commentators should play epidemiologist while making predictions of catastrophe.
Where did that happen? In this thread or elsewhere?
Because it leads to fear-mongering. For example, downthread, here;
But you did imply that. Look, I am all for keeping a cool head. But at the same time I'm not going to cool my head by sticking it in the sand. I think if you're going to participate in these discussions then you probably should do so by making your statements a lot clearer than you do.
If you - for instance - idd not intend to suggest that someone did try to extrapolate those numbers then you did a poor job of it. You can't just make up strawmen and then suggest people shouldn't do that.
The comment you linked to was properly qualified and is not fearmongering. If you think that is fearmongering then you possibly have a reading / comprehension issue.
Let me help you by picking that comment apart:
> The 1.4% apply to the general population.
You can't really argue with that I think,
> For people over 80, the fatality rate is 15%.
Not exactly correct, I have it at 14.8% once infected and showing symptoms. But close enough.
> There are roughly 13 million people over 80 in the US [1].
This is properly cited.
> If everyone gets infected, a fatality rate of 15% means 2 million deaths in that single bracket alone.
Again, this is properly qualified by the leading 'If'
> With the 1.4% figure it's 4.6 million over the entire US population.
Again, with the implied assumption that people are all infected, something that is unlikely to happen.
> As a comparison, the number of yearly deaths in the US caused by influenza is in the 5 digits.
This is correct as far as I know, between 10 and 60K cases annually ranging from very good years to very bad ones.
> World war 2 killed 3% of the world population over a range of multiple years [2].
Can't argue with that.
> If the coronavirus kills only 1% of the current world population, its death toll in absolute numbers will be equal to WW2.
Again, properly qualified by a conditional.
> I think at this point, the disease can't be contained, its spread only slowed.
I don't think anybody is arguing that it can be contained still, even the WHO has moved on this, though they kept it up for longer than I personally think was responsible.
> Everyone will be exposed to it sooner or later.
Probably correct, similar to the flu, most people get exposed to it in their lives and usually once per year.
> Fortunately though there are treatments, and there are already candidates for vaccines. The question is only how quickly and how well those treatments can be deployed.
If there is one part of this comment that I have issues with then it is this one. There are - as far as I know - no vaccine candidates that have been trialed. I'm happy to be proven wrong here so any link is welcome.
> The less people have the disease at the same time, the better.
And that is the key insight: the whole thing revolves around managing the capacity to deal with the people that are ill. That and effectively reducing R0 < 1 are the main tools that we have at this stage to deal with this particular virus.
Now, you want to keep playing that game.
To extrapolate over the general population with the 1.4% case fatality of serious hospital cases, would be wrong and would be fear mongering. The general population does not have a infection rate of 100% nor a case fatality rate of 1.4%.
So the premise is wrong, the assumptions are wrong, and the result are wrong.
>> If everyone gets infected, a fatality rate of 15% means 2 million deaths in that single bracket alone.
> Again, this is properly qualified by the leading 'If'
Qualifying a statement ending with ”means 2 million deaths in that single bracket alone.” with a qualifier that is false is what I would call fearmongering.
>> With the 1.4% figure it's 4.6 million over the entire US population.
> Again, with the implied assumption that people are all infected, something that is unlikely to happen.
No, it’s not an “implied assumption” it’s faulty epidemiology. First, it is faulty to assume that everyone who is exposed will be infected. Second, it is faulty to apply the 1.4% case fatality rate of serious hospital infections to the entire US population.
The assumptions are wrong. The figures are wrong. The result is wrong. It is putting false information based on poor understanding of the facts into the discussion and it’s gone totally off the rails. Please, you should seriously reconsider why you are supporting this.
I am not playing games. This stuff is far too serious to play games over.
> To extrapolate over the general population with the 1.4% case fatality of serious hospital cases, would be wrong and would be fear mongering. The general population does not have a infection rate of 100% nor a case fatality rate of 1.4%.
No, but the Spanish Flu for instance had an infection rate of about 25%, and the general infected population could very well be above that 1.4% (in fact, there is every indication so far that it will end up somewhere between 2 and 3%).
> So the premise is wrong, the assumptions are wrong, and the result are wrong.
The premises isn't nearly as faulty as you make it out to be, it might be off by a factor of four, hopefully much less than that. But so far - taking Wuhan as our baseline - unchecked this thing will spread very fast and kill lots of people. The only reason the onslaught was halted is because the Chinese took a bunch of draconian counter measures, the likes of which very few countries in the world will be able to copy.
> Qualifying a statement ending with ”means 2 million deaths in that single bracket alone.” with a qualifier that is false is what I would call fearmongering.
That's fine by me. But it isn't. As a whole it isn't and in the details it isn't either. We actually have precedent for this whole situation, it is the 1918 pandemic and the world apparently hasn't learned its lesson fully. Which may mean we are about to re-learn it the hard way. Maybe this time it will stick. But then - as now - there were plenty of people like you who were willfully - given the way this conversation is progressing I am assuming you are doing this on purpose - ignoring the cold hard facts. And that made the pandemic much worse than it had to be.
Large events were not called off and led to the disease spreading much further than it had to.
Absent an effective anti-dote to this virus and with an overwhelmed health care system (note the qualifiers!) we might as well be in 1918.
> No, it’s not an “implied assumption” it’s faulty epidemiology.
Not as far as I can see. People talk about hypotheticals all the time. You can't really come out like this against a pretty clear comment and at the same time make up stuff you rail against that never happened in the first place. Fix your own issues first.
> First, it is faulty to assume that everyone who is exposed will be infected.
Agreed, so let's divide the number by 4 and call it a day. That's the worst this could possibly get. Right? Or do you think that given a sample of '1' the 1918 flu might not be the best guideline for precision and that it might be better or worse? We don't actually know the answer to that.
> Second, it is faulty to apply the 1.4% case fatality rate of serious hospital infections to the entire US population.
That's true. But for all the same money we end up with a higher case fatality rate. So that may end up affecting the equation in a negative way.
But assuming 10% of the country becomes infected and 5% of those end up with symptoms serious enough to warrant ICU care there is a serious problem.
And that 10% could very well be low. So as far as I'm concerned you should start taking this a bit more serious instead of trying to shout down the discussion. Stay dispassionate and try to argue your case with actual numbers rather than nay-saying. That way you can contribute rather than just irritate. Think of it as an opportunity to educate, and you just might learn a thing or two yourself.
I just want to say, it’s easy to take the wrong numbers, multiply together, and see 100 ways that millions of people die. That’s fear mongering.
What I believe is that it’s incumbent on anyone who wants to participant in predictive discussions to do so responsibly and using only the best numbers that we have on hand.
Anything could happen. And this is always true, whether it’s the Ebola discussion from a while back, or SARS, or MERS, or COVID today.
You still seem to insist on claiming that we could see pervasive worldwide infection, 5% ICU admits, and 1.4%+ general population fatality. I hope you will soon realize that is not actually representative of what we are facing, where in fact, the vast majority of cases are mild or even asymptomatic. I expect this will be clear even to the most avid doomers by mid-April.
Lastly, I don’t want to go back and forth on little things, but this;
> at the same time make up stuff you rail against that never happened in the first place. Fix your own issues first.
I think you need to re-read what I originally wrote. I never strawmaned.
I said the numbers were all wrong as they were stated due to lack of proper context. I could have used the word “useless” or “misleading” instead of “wrong” and that might have been better.
I then followed up by saying it’s imperative not to try to use those numbers to extrapolate in the general population. I could have said “one must not”. I was not accusing Op of doing this.
I was trying to say that the danger of not properly qualifying the context of a percentage like case fatality is that people will misuse it by improperly extrapolating.
Then we found an example down thread which does exactly that... and you defend it anyway. Which is fine, but I stand my ground on the argument (same as the NEJM doctors) that it’s improper to extrapolate the hospital case fatality to the general population.
If one “assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%.” (NEJM)
But you yourself are not doing that. You quote data that has been long ago overrun by the reality on the ground.
> You still seem to insist on claiming that we could see pervasive worldwide infection, 5% ICU admits, and 1.4%+ general population fatality.
We could. We also could not. Let's hope for the best and plan for the worst. That way we can all laugh at this a year from now.
> I hope you will soon realize that is not actually representative of what we are facing, where in fact, the vast majority of cases are mild or even asymptomatic.
I do not doubt that at all. But that does not rule out that the numbers could still be quite bad.
10% infected and 1.4% CFR would be very bad news.
> I expect this will be clear even to the most avid doomers by mid-April.
Maybe those 'avid doomers' aren't the doomers. The doomers are the cultists and the 'we're all going to die' people. We're not all going to die. But unless we take substantial countermeasures a lot more people will die than need to. Look at Iran for a taste of that. And that's the message that should go out: reduce the opportunity for the virus to spread so that we get to R0 < 1 as soon as possible and then mop up from there. Anything less and it will just get worse and worse.
BTW that NJEM paper you keep referencing is very out of date. Yes it passed peer review and was published last week, but it's using data from Jan 29. It was actually written nearly a month ago; I found a preprint of that paper posted Feb 3. You'd be aware of this if you were actively following the novel coronavirus situation.
There's a more up-to-date paper published by China CDC that covers 72,314 patients / 44,672 confirmed cases using data thru Feb 11. I would reference figures from that paper instead.
> I think you may be giving OP too much credit with their use of “cases” implying hospital cases (which is the 5% ICU number, it is not 5% of infections require the ICU) ... It is absolutely not 5% of “known” cases.
No, he's correct. Current evidence shows at least 5% of confirmed cases require ICU care. From the WHO China report, they note that 6.1% of all cases are critical. They define critical as the following: "Critical cases are defined as respiratory failure requiring mechanical ventilation, shock or other organ failure that requires intensive care."
These numbers are not just a China fluke. We're seeing similar critical percentages in other countries. For example, as of today, Singapore has 106 confirmed cases of which 7 are critical (~6.6%).
> I don’t think HN commentators should play epidemiologist
Isn't that what you're doing?
[0] http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/en/article/id/e53946e2-c6c4-41e9-9...
[1] https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-chi...
> In China, the overall CFR was higher in the early stages of the outbreak (17.3% for cases with symptom onset from 1- 10 January) and has reduced over time to 0.7% for patients with symptom onset after 1 February (Figure 4). The Joint Mission noted that the standard of care has evolved over the course of the outbreak.
So to highlight that, going forward, CFR of 0.7% of lab diagnosed cases.
For instance, this week 4 South Koreans died while waiting to be hospitalized. An additional 600 sick are still waiting for hospital beds. They don't have enough beds! And this is in the country with the 2nd most hospital beds per person!
Many of the serious, and almost all of the severe cases will perish without medical care. Once the medical system is overwhelmed, the CFR could climb past 10%.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/fbxm0s/south_k...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_countries_by_hosp...
Shall we agree that if it ends up being bad there that you'll print out this comment and eat it? There is no downside from an 'abundance of caution' but there is a severe downside from not being cautious enough.
Or do we really have to re-enact each and every mistake made by the Chinese early on in this drama?
[1] https://www.visitvalencia.com/en/events-valencia/festivities...
Will the people discussing 5-7% general population fatality rates over the last week agree to eat theirs if it turns out to be less harmful than last year’s flu?
Of course there are serious downsides to hysteria and doomsday prophecies. The market lost $3.4 trillion in value last week, for starters. But also real world economic impact which causes actual harm to everyday people.
This has to be scientifically justified and not just political expedience.
I'm sure they will be very happy to do that, but I haven't seen anybody discussing 5-7% general population fatality rates, especially not on here. Link? My own comments - and I stand by those - consistently list 2-3% of those infected. That's still plenty bad and if it ends up to be less harmful than last years flu then we all have a reason for a celebration.
> Of course there are serious downsides to hysteria and doomsday prophecies. The market lost $3.4 trillion in value last week, for starters.
The market can will recover just as fast if it turns out to be a 'false alarm'. But right now there are no indications that it is and the only thing propping the markets up this Monday is the promise of money injected into the markets. Also, dead people typically do not recover as well as markets do.
> But also real world economic impact which causes actual harm to everyday people.
Yes it does.
> This has to be scientifically justified and not just political expedience.
I would start with my own comments if I were you. You fairly consistently mis-represent the numbers and have been called out on that before.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22432358
> I would start with my own comments if I were you. You fairly consistently mis-represent the numbers and have been called out on that before.
Please, this is false and uncalled for. Mostly, I just quote the studies.
> Please, this is false and uncalled for. Mostly, I just quote the studies.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22452274
You quote the studies, but fail to understand the context of the studies. For the most part these assume access to healthcare is available for those infected. The big point that you are - apparently, correct me if I am wrong - missing is that once the healthcare system is overwhelmed the numbers will change substantially for the worse.
We now have four countries where this has happened.
The text I quoted was from the NEJM discussing the relevance of the 1.4% case fatality rate in serious hospital cases as it pertains to the general population. So it’s highly relevant to our discussion here.
Here’s the article (again):
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2002387?query=rec...
The replies I got appear to take issue with the editorial from Fauci, Lane, and Redfield (all M.D.s)
I think they erroneously thought that the comment was my own writing and not a quote.
> The big point that you are - apparently, correct me if I am wrong - missing is that once the healthcare system is overwhelmed the numbers will change substantially for the worse.
For starters, most of the available numbers are the case fatality during a period where the healthcare system (Wuhan) was in fact massively overwhelmed.
Second, you state a definitive when it is in fact an assumption. You used the word “ONCE” instead of “IF”.
Third, your premise is somewhat circular. I.e. thinking along the lines of, ‘If the ICU rate is 5%, and the R0 is 4 then healthcare services will be overwhelmed making the R0 rise to 4 and the general population ICU rate spike to 5%’.
If a functioning system has a overall ICU rate of 0.5% (or 0.05%) and a baseline R0 of 2, then maybe the system just keeps functioning.
As a comparison, the number of yearly deaths in the US caused by influenza is in the 5 digits. World war 2 killed 3% of the world population over a range of multiple years [2]. If the coronavirus kills only 1% of the current world population, its death toll in absolute numbers will be equal to WW2.
I think at this point, the disease can't be contained, its spread only slowed. Everyone will be exposed to it sooner or later. Fortunately though there are treatments, and there are already candidates for vaccines. The question is only how quickly and how well those treatments can be deployed. The less people have the disease at the same time, the better.
[1]: https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of-america/2...
This is especially true in scenarios where the infection is predominantly mild. This is also especially true in scenarios where diagnostic testing bandwidth was being stressed. Both are true in this case. I fully expect the general population fatality rate for COVID will be on the order of 0.1% or less of all infected. Keeping in mind the true denominator will never actually be known.
At risk of belaboring the point... you state that the fatality rate for people over 80 is 15%. This is false. Maybe it is accurate to say that the fatality rate is 15% for people over 80 who go to the hospital. That is a massively important qualifier to the statement. The fatality rate for all infected people over 80 is not known. The closest you can get is looking at Diamond Princess, where everyone was exposed and as of right now 6 of 3700 died, and that’s in a population skewing elderly.
Check this study, it contains that number: http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/en/article/id/e53946e2-c6c4-41e9-9...
Yes, most people studied were symptomatic, so asymptomatic people weren't checked.
> The closest you can get is looking at Diamond Princess, where everyone was exposed and as of right now 6 of 3700 died, and that’s in a population skewing elderly.
First, we can't be sure that everyone was exposed to the disease. Even if we assume that everyone was exposed, then I still interpret the numbers differently from you: first, patients on Diamond Princess were subject to medical attention so they likely saved many lives, and second, A total number of 705 of 3700 people became ill enough to be able to confirm the disease on them, the same category of people the 1.4% or the 15% were calculated on. So assume for a moment that 1 out of 5 people exposed become confirmably ill. Even if you divide the number of deaths by 5, it's still a large number and larger than influenza or other diseases.
Older folks have a much higher fatality rate.
It's much more complicated than that and anyone stating decisive numbers is full of it. On one hand you've got the number of cases in the wild probably being higher than the confirmed cases, on the other hand there is a 1-3 week lag between people contracting the virus and death, so you can't really claim it's a low percentage until people are recovering. It will be weeks/months before the numbers start showing the true story.
Currently South Korea is the biggest source of optimism, it's only killed 0.5% of cases there, but the also only have 30/4000 that are recovered.
I don't disagree, but it's not as skewed as you think. A lot of that 80% will be very ill and get tested, a 'mild' case is basically anyone not attached to an oxygen tank.
Edit - Sigh, from the WHO: https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses
> The most common symptoms of COVID-19 are fever, tiredness, and dry cough. Some patients may have aches and pains, nasal congestion, runny nose, sore throat or diarrhea. These symptoms are usually mild and begin gradually. Some people become infected but don’t develop any symptoms and don't feel unwell. Most people (about 80%) recover from the disease without needing special treatment. Around 1 out of every 6 people who gets COVID-19 becomes seriously ill and develops difficulty breathing.
"80% of people will have no symptoms" is not true.
That doesnt mean you need to stock up on ammunition and night vision googles, just have some food safety even just to not overload the supply chain
An "I have the CoronaVirus and possibly Ebola" sign at the door will keep intruders away :). If kept safely guns are not a bad idea, if you are the type, and especially if you live in rural areas.
Gun owners are more likely to get in gun accidents.
These are both backed by data.
Spurious conclusion: Boating and swimming are irresponsible.
It's basic logic that less guns equals less gun violence. I also want less grenades and rocket launchers, because I'd rather not have them used around me.
https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Iranians-burn-clinic-that-...
now why might that be?
The journeymen, supervisors, government officials anyone else you can think of that is of elevated importance of function are at elevated risk.
im talking about people that have critical knowledge or capabilities that are not cultivated by simply picking up a book and reading.
how many surgeons, airtraffic controllers and nuclear technicians can we afford to suddenly loose?
I assume you mean potable water and not a giant cistern dug into your back yard?
How much water counts as "two weeks" worth?
> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-viruses-alive...
https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/fayko1/my_covid19_stor...
https://twitter.com/CarlZha/status/1231745522123202561
Everything about this looks like an ordinary flu-like virus with massive oversampling at the lethal end of things. Aka since Corona-chan testing is expensive compared to the normal flu screen, you only get it when you're on death's door, which makes it look much worse than it is.
This does not definitively tell you anything about how those two people were infected.
Everything else is speculation wrapped in clickbait.
For the vast majority of people, an infection of this coronavirus would be more mild than catching the flu.
A reasoned analysis (such as what was provided yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine) puts the fatality rate of COVID-19 on the same order of magnitude as the flu.
It is new and very sensationalized. I think it’s absolutely imperative to try to maintain a rational stance of the actual relative impact of this coronavirus versus a typical flu season.
Up to 3,000 have died from COVID so far, mostly in Hubei. Hubei has a population of ~60 million, which is ~18% of the US population. About 60,000 people died from flu-related illness last year in the US. The same proportion in Hubei would be 10,800.
So it seems it is demonstrably less harmful than flu. Why China or the World is reacting the way is it will be a great question 3-6 months from now in retrospect.
How do you come to that conclusion? This is not an apples to apples comparison. You’re looking at the annual deaths in the US and comparing them to 2 months of deaths mostly in Wuhan, and those Wuhan deaths were largely curbed due to extremely draconian policies enacted to slow the spread.
If you want to begin to try to compare annual deaths to Wuhan deaths so far, then if ~3,000 people died in 2 months in Wuhan, then you’d have 18,000 deaths in Wuhan in a year assuming a linear distribution (which has its flaws). But that’s still not apples to apples, since that’s with the extreme mitigation policies that are in effect in Wuhan, and seasonality comes into play for the flu over the span of a year (more deaths in the colder months) but we don’t know how seasonality will impact coronavirus yet. If Coronavirus is to become widespread and uncontainable, then it is still ramping up to whatever “normal” levels you’d expect to see (if it becomes a recurring seasonal bug like the flu), and that’s also assuming that Wuhan’s absolute death count isn’t impacted by its total population size —- there’s a larger population in the US, and different healthcare practices, population density, travel patterns, authoritarian-draconian policies, all with positive and negative effects onto the R0.
I don’t see how you can definitively say that the flu is demonstrably more harmful. But it may be helpful to say that the flu makes things worse, since they have similar symptoms and not everybody has their flu shots. A big threat to mitigation would be maxing out the healthcare infrastructure. If more people got their flu shots then less people would be showing up to the hospital with flu-like symptoms that aren’t covid-19.
It's possible the number of infected in the region only broke triple digits a couple of weeks ago. But exponential processes being exponential, there could be many thousands in 1-2 weeks.
Edit: Stated another way, from what we know of the course of the disease (14-21 days from infection till fatality) the critical and fatal patients identified this weekend likely entered the disease process 2-3 weeks ago when the total number of infections was small.
Edit 2: another confounding factor is that these numbers seem assume that all of the current infected are traceable to the index patient. I think it's very possible that there are other "trees" of infections spreading at the same time from different unidentified index patients. I'm guessing that's true because studies show that airport screening misses >50% of cases. Additional sequences on WA patients will be hugely informative.
At least one of the buildings is already slated for demolition later this year.
I dare any news organization to put a live count of flu infections and fatalities up next to the COVID counts.
https://qz.com/1792705/coronavirus-the-engineering-behind-wu...
Here’s one of the new hospitals on a live stream, by the way;
Most are expected to close by the end of March.
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/qa-wuhans-biggest-te...
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/upshot/coronavirus-surpri...