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Comment by Fr0styMatt88 | Hacker News Reader

It could also be because your immune system got used to the change in environment.

I honestly don’t understand the particular level of fear around COVID-19 when compared to other flu outbreaks. Can anyone point me to a concise explanation? I mean, I get that it’s a new virus we’ve never seen before, but what distinctly sets it apart? Everything I’ve read says that it affects older people and those with a compromised immune system the worst, which is just like any flu. Is it mostly that we’re worried about what we don’t know that we don’t know? Not trying to be dismissive, I just feel like I’m missing something. I don’t remember the panic around swine flu or bird flu being like this.

Also does anyone know why people are panic-buying toilet paper in my country?

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Case fatality rate for swine flu was around 0.02%[1]. There's still a lot of uncertainty around 2019-nCoV, but most estimates appear to be closer to 1-2%.

You're not wrong in that old and sick people are the affected the most, but it's significantly worse compared to e.g. Influenza[2].

[1]: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-...

[2]: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jbloom/CoV_vs_flu_CFR/mast...

The death rate, and the infectivity rate.

Normal flu is about 0.005%, estimates on this are about 1%, assuming that your country can rapidly expand its Intensive Care Units to handle the influx. R is estimated between 2-6, evidence in the last 2 weeks from Europe suggests the higher end of that scale. It is spreading very rapidly.

Although we can´t really trust the figures from China, we know that whatever was happening in Wuhan in early December/January was sufficiently bad for them to put half the country under strict quarantine. Even a bad flu season, would not have triggered that kind of reaction.

We're just trying to slow the spread so not all the vulnerable population - there's a large number, end up in the hospital simultaneously.

If that happens, then everyone is more likely to die when they need the hospital for unrelated reasons and can't get treated because its doors are shut.

You may be young and healthy and not be concerned, but if you're spreading it around carelessly you're facilitating the nightmare scenario of a collapsing healthcare system.

For one, fear is irrational. It is based on a perception of threat and we as humans do it in many ways. One way is to see that others are afraid and therefore we should too. To add to this, the fear is not entirely unfounded. Estimates of the fatality are between 1% to 4%. No proper case fatality statistics can be computed as the epidemic is not over/have not gone long enough yet. At 1%, this is already 10 times the fatality rate of the seasonal flu so no, this is not just a bad flu season. This is an exceptionally bad flu season.

The reason I think countries are still trying to contain it is because if we allow the this flu strain to become seasonal because of lack of containment, it becomes an ongoing price that we have to pay each year. Within each new strain of flu that we encounter in the future, if we successively fail to contain each one, there will be many more strains of flu seasonally. Of course， a technological breakthrough may alter such a course.

> I honestly don’t understand the particular level of fear around COVID-19 when compared to other flu outbreaks.

I don’t think it has anything to do with the mortality of this particular one. The problem here is that about 10% of the patients require ICU and potentially mechanical ventilation. This, togerther with the short in supply of desinfection and sanitizsrs, poses the risk that other ilnesses can’t be treated. People don’t die because of covid-19 infection. People die because of complications because the immune system is destabilised and usually curable deaseses become mortal because: there are no drugs, no protection, no staff, too many people require treatment at once.

Thanks to everyone that responded. I hadn't seen the reasons for the added concern explained as clearly/directly.

COVID-19 mortality is about one order of magnitude higher than that of a regular flu, for every age group. That's a lot. And R0 is higher. And there is no vaccine. And the US botched the response with its stupid "don't test, don't tell" policy.

I estimate my probability of dying from COVID-19 this year to be higher than from all other reasons combined, and I'm not that old yet.

Mortality-wise it looks to be around 20x worse than flu, and easy to spread before outward symptoms manifest. There's no vaccine, so the usual partial herd immunity isn't present, and no confirmed treatments yet beyond trying to help your own immune system. As you say, it will probably be mild for most people who catch it (but who wants to risk "probably"), but certainly worse if you're not in good shape.

Panic buying is just like a rush on the bank; if everyone buys more than usual there will be a temporary shortage of stock, and no-one wants to be caught short on the loo. People are anticipating needing to self-quarantine for 2+ weeks (probably more if you need to isolate your whole family), but without knowing which two weeks the timer starts. And people are probably vaguely aware that there will be a supply crunch in a few months because China's manufacturing lines have been slowed and the knock on effects haven't fed through yet.

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