It should be noted that these reports weren't a surprise - reduced lung capacity months after recovery is common for all kinds of pneumonia.
This is not a peculiarity of SARS-CoV-2. Other coronaviruses can also invade the central nervous system.
I had influenza B in early January and had pneumonia. 105 fever for a week, difficult to breath, the whole thing.
During that time I actually looked up and found out about COVID-19. I tested positive for influenza B, but the information actually let my family prepare by stocking up in January. Lucky in a sense.
That said I'm not aware of the WHO saying the IFR was .1-.3%, I've consistently seen estimates of .5-1.5%.
That said, in Italy the CFR is 15%, and reasonable estimates for the IFR wouldn't be below 2%, with 5% being completely reasonable.
I know the difference between CFR and IFR. But i doubt journalists who wrote about covid-19 fatality knew that, such details are too technical for mainstream media. The idea conveyed by media was simply 'most people would get it as there is no immunity, and there is ~5% fatality rate'.
In that time we already have order of magnitude lower IFR estimates from WHO (e.g. from covid-19 situation report 30).
> we have estimates of the IFR which are more in line with 0.9 to 1.5% (based on the antibody tests in NYC for example).
In different areas it seems to be different. NYC was hit particularly bad, so it is not a good idea to generalize data from that. In Heinsberg (Germany) study, the IFR is estimated to be 0.37, although Heinsberg was also hit hard.
> The IFR for the flu is 0.1% in the bad year ... That's 10 times higher, I don't know about you, but an order of magnitude is pretty significant in my book.
I did not compare covid-19 to flu. It is true that covid-19 is order of magnitue worse than seasonal flu. My point was that it is order of magnitude better than media image of covid-19.
The articles I’ve seen talking about this usually explain that other severe illnesses can cause such symptoms.
The unusual thing about the coronavirus is that it causes severe illness in so many - resulting in not only an extraordinary number of deaths but also of other damage to the body.
I wonder why they report the number of deaths and infections. After all it's all known that viruses spread and people die from respiratory infections, right?
In many places the annual flu is more deadly. And all the articles about running out of space at morgues, etc. are common in winter in Europe.
We've had SARS and MERS before (MERS is way more deadly, yet we didn't enter a global panic). There is something specific about this panic, and it's not the virus; it's a variant of something we've seen before.
That the media played fear mongering is a given, that's what they always do; I suspect the new factor is social media, which has probably amplified that factor even more.
Can I suggest some basic reasoning as to why? Do you know which countries MERS spread to and how many people died as a result of MERS since it was first identified?
MERS was first identified in 2012. In 8 years, it has killed about 866 people worldwide.
SARS was first identified in 2002. In 2 years, it has killed 774 people and then disappeared.
SARS-Cov-2, the novel coronavirus, first appeared only 6 months ago in China. Since then, it has killed 100,000s.
How can you suggest that there isn’t more cause for concern over SARS-Cov-2, considering deaths are already at over 100x the other two viruses you mention in far less time, and that this death count comes despite an incredible, unprecedented international campaign to slow the virus?
Again, I'm not saying we shouldn't be doing anything. The catastrophe movie, Hollywood-like global mass hysteria was totally over the top and unwarranted, though.
We have ways to deal with epidemics that don't involve completely changing the rules, talking about "being at war" and so on.
This is simply outright wrong.
https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-compare-with-flu...
Please stop spreading misinformation.
We all have the same voice here, and I'm "spreading" whatever the heck I want. It's not "misinformation" just because you happen to have a different appreciation of the facts. I don't have to answer to the nerd police, here or elsewhere.
We have the same access to a website, sure, but you don't have the right to freely outright lie, specially when confronted with the facts.
Again, don't spread misinformation.
Covid is more contagious and more deadly than what we had so far when both factors are considered. In Italy hospitals were pretty much overwhelmed this year due covid with the number of people dying and the sheer number of infections. Did that happen last year or the year before due influenta/flue season as well?
> In many places the annual flu is more deadly. And all the articles about running out of space at morgues, etc. are common in winter in Europe.
This is false and you are spreading misinformation. The estimated IFR you can calculate from e.g. the antibody test done in NYC is between 0.8 and 1.5% that's 10times higher than the flu. Moreover, the percentage of patients requiring intensive care is comparatively even higher (it really is not about the death rate primarily). Also please show some evidence for you assertion that morgues running out of space in Europe is common.
> We've had SARS and MERS before (MERS is way more deadly, yet we didn't enter a global panic). There is something specific about this panic, and it's not the virus; it's a variant of something we've seen before.
The reason why MERS and SARS did not cause this response is because they spread much slower. There are lots of diseases which are more deadly than covid19, the difference is how they spread. For example a disease that spreads through blood transfusions could have 99% fatility rate but would never be as dangerous to public health as covid 19 is.
> That the media played fear mongering is a given, that's what they always do; I suspect the new factor is social media, which has probably amplified that factor even more.
Actually the new thing is "experts" popping up all over social media talking about how everything is just overblown and we should not trust the real experts. This stories are pushed very clearly from political corners with a very specific agenda, it's all about discrediting science, evidence based decision making and our institutions (it all started with cigarettes then global warming and now covid19) . That's the irony all the conspiracy followers don't realise that they are part of the biggest misinformation campaign orchestrated by groups with very strong economic interests (you might even call them elites)
And I think you're reading a bit too much into my post. I don't think I'm a conspiracy theorist or whatever (and may I suggest you take your condescending tone and shove it deep down where the Coronavirus won't reach it?)
Now, I'm actually following the advice of scientists. I'm not more an "expert" than you are an "expert", of course, that is correct. I'm French, and our foremost (actual) expert on the issue, Professor Didier Raoult, whose advice I'm listening to, has been saying that it's just another respiratory disease epidemic, like we have regularly. He's not advising to do nothing; quite the opposite, for many years he's been asking the government to do more to fight seasonal flu. Now, the irony is that he finds himself in the camp of people urging the government to calm down a bit...
As for my evidence regarding morgues:
One (French) article from 2017: http://www.leparisien.fr/archives/une-grippe-meurtriere-13-0...
"FACT OF THE DAY. The number of deaths largely exceeds the seasonal average. Like emergency rooms, funeral services are overflowing"
This happens every other winter here, and it's generally worse in Italy due to their older population. It's bad, we need to manage those epidemics, but not start shooting a catastrophe movie every time that happens.
The reason why I used NYC was because we have reasonably good data from the recent antibody tests which found about 20% population infection. Based on those numbers, the population of NYC and the dead we end up with an IFR of 0.8%-1.5% depending if we use confirmed deaths, suspected deaths or excess deaths (note the actual value would be higher because of the lag between infection and death).
Now for some non US numbers just have a look at the Euromono data https://euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ You can see the excess death spike which is considerably (for some countries by a lot) larger than the flu epidemic from 2017. So in most countries in Europe it has been significantly more deadly than the flu.
And considering your comment on overflowing hospital, tell me when was the last time they were flying many flu patients per day from Paris hospitals to relief hospitals by helicopter. I know people living close to one and they had almost constant flight noise.
Didier Raoult definitely warrants some background reading
"But 87 years ago, on 18 April 1930, the BBC's news announcer had nothing to communicate. "There is no news," was the script of the 20:45 news bulletin, before piano music was played for the rest of the 15-minute segment."
If you haven’t had it you won’t understand. I can’t swim but if you’re a swimmer you might understand a parallel - it’s like not being able to swim - your head bobbing on water surface, sometimes you can breathe other times you are just gasping. If you’re in water the people will see you’re drowning and a life guard will pull you out.
Pneumonia is this “almost drowning” for weeks!and then bring barely able to breathe for months.
Again: fear is exactly the right response to pneumonia!
I am not countering you but the parent. Old age itself is a pre-existing condition and then we develop more for each day we live (obesity, heart attacks, diabetes). I know the numbers of true risk may be different but can we manage 5-15% of people falling extremely sick?
Yes, but not so much fear that you ride out your stroke or heart attack at home because you think venturing out of your house and into the ER is wading into certain death via pneumonia.
That is the level of fear that the media has induced in some people and it's even more dangerous (at the individual level) than too little fear.
I imagine being in those shoes feels a lot like it would have to need surgery when you're HIV positive, back when HIV was an eventual death sentence: you'd feel guilt/shame for exposing your doctors to this coincidental problem you have, that might get them sick.
And so these people don't go, and end up dying of these other problems, likely at a much higher level than the people who are just staying indoors out of paranoia.
Edit: Updated fatality percentage from 0.16% to 0.25%, to reflect the latest numbers.
In 2018, NYC’s premature death rate was 189 per 100,000, or 0.189% of the population. In a single quarter COVID-19 has already surpassed all causes of premature death combined. And that’s before the epidemic is done, and before we’ve had a chance to re-test earlier deaths to adjust the numbers properly.
You’re not wrong that some people will die from otherwise treatable heart attacks, and that’s tragic. But to assert that more will die from staying home than not requires some pretty extraordinary evidence.
Assuming you have a heart attack, your chance of dying is 20%. Higher if you don't get treatment.
That's as high or higher than your chance of dying from covid-19 assuming you're in the highest risk group.
A conservative estimate of likelihood to catch covid if you go to a hospital at this point is 5%. In reality it's probably lower.
These end up mostly cancelling out, so if you the I the chance you're suffering from a heart attack is higher than the chance of catching covid you should go to the hospital. (And this is me still fudging the numbers to make covid look comparatively more dangerous than it really is).
People will needlessly sir if we collectively overstate tht dangers of covid. That's without a doubt true. People will also die if we understate them and don't take reasonable precautions.
Really? Where is this number form?
You're certainly at more risk in a hospital than at home, but it's not that crazy. Since it seems like you're in the bay area, consider that for the chance to even be 5%, something like most new Covid cases in the bay would need to come from hospital employees or patients. I don't think that's happening.
Months after the lockdown started and the surge was successfully averted, we're still not doing cancer surgeries and diagnostics. I don't understand how this level of fear and conservatism is saving more people than it's hurting. COVID is nowhere near as dangerous as a malignant tumor.
There is a middle ground of appropriate fear that we've blown past.
There is also this assumption that people will haplessly get infected as if they were livestock. Which they are not. The will stop going up, stop spending money, avoiding work if they can. That's baked in and not something the government imposes. Except to impose order on the process. An orderly early lockdown is better than a late chaotic panicked one.
I had symptoms but it honestly was more like a mild flu.
So please stop your fear mongering and holier than thou attitude, just because you had it and it was bad doesn't mean that everyone will be the same. In fact serological studies prove that the overwhelming majority barely have any symptoms, and of those who do even fewer develop into a severe illness.
I'm not sure you fully understand the problem you're trying to discuss. The problem is not just about ourselves catching it. The main problem is us acting as transmission vectors to anyone and everyone around us.
You may believe you are magically enchanted to not have any lasting consequences from a covid19 infection, but I'm quite sure that you come across people who may fall within one of the risk cohorts. Thus you crossing their path might very well be a death sentence to them. But that shouldn't bother you, right?
We've largely addressed HIV through various treatments and education (what you might call "fear-mongering" about shared needles and unprotected sex). HIV doesn't cause an obvious symptomatic response -- much like many people's experience with the novel coronavirus. But it weakens the immune system and other, otherwise harmless, infections take root and can cause significant harm.