Is The Coronavirus Really More
Dangerous Than The Flu?
By Moon Of Alabama
March 11, 2020 "Information
Clearing House" - Today the financial
markets
finally recognized the economic damage the novel
Coronavirus will cause.
The
price war in the crude oil markets which Russia
initiated did not cause today's stock market fall
but it also did not help. While cheap oil is
supposed to be good for the economy the drop will
also cause significant damage in the U.S. financial
markets as the whole fracking industry in the United
States is laden with debt and is now destined to be
wiped out. Expect crude prices to sink to $20 per
barrel as frantic overproduction and a drop in
demand due to the virus coincide. Russia is
well positioned to
win this price war. Others are not.
It is the virus pandemic that causes the downturn
in stock markets. But what makes the Sars-CoV-2
virus, as the novel Coronavirus is now officially
known, so dangerous? The Covid-19 disease the virus
causes is basically a flu though its seems to be one
of the more severe kinds.
But it is a totally NEW kind of flu and that
makes all the difference.
Each year some 15% of the world population will
be infected with one or more of the dozens of flu
viruses we know. The people get ill and most will
recover while they also develop some immunity
against the specific virus they were infected with.
Over the years this sums up to a basic immunity
level within our societies. So many people already
had a flu from the well known viruses that most of
them will not get infected during another flu
season. We have also developed vaccines against the
most well known viruses. They help to keep the
people who work in health care on their job even
when many new flu patients come in.
But when a new viruses evolves everything is
different. Our societies do not have a basic
immunity against a new virus. Without
countermeasures many more people will get sick
during the first, second and third wave of a new
virus onslaught than during a normal flu season.
Health care staff will also get infected and must
quarantine itself. Some health care workers
will probably die. Hospitals will become
overwhelmed and the health care system will break
down just as it did in Wuhan, China. The breakdown
of the health care system also leads to a much
larger number of virus death than under a working
health care system.
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Here is a surgeon in Bergamo, Italy,
describing such a situation:
The cases multiply, up to a rate of 15-20
hospitalizations a day all for the same reason.
The results of the swabs now come one after the
other: positive, positive, positive. Suddenly
the emergency room is collapsing. Emergency
provisions are issued: help is needed in the
emergency room. A quick meeting to learn how the
to use to emergency room EHR and a few minutes
later I'm already downstairs, next to the
warriors on the war front. The screen of the PC
with the chief complaint is always the same:
fever and respiratory difficulty, fever and
cough, respiratory insufficiency etc ... Exams,
radiology always with the same sentence:
bilateral interstitial pneumonia. All needs to
be hospitalized. Some already need to be
intubated, and go to the ICU. For others,
however, it is late. ICU is full, and when ICUs
are full, more are created. Each ventilator is
like gold: those in the operating rooms that
have now suspended their non-urgent activity are
used and the OR become an ICU that did not exist
before.
The current case fatality rate in Lombardy
has now topped 6%. We know from China (ex Hubei
province) that in a functioning health care system
the death rate of Covid-19 patients is lower than
1%. It is not the virus that kills more people in
Italy, it is an overwhelmed health care system.
A health care system that is overwhelmed with
Covid-19 cases can also no longer take care of
regular cases. People with an acute heart attack,
with diabetes problems, or kids who have fallen off
a bicycle will find that the hospitals are full and
unable to care for them.
The only way to prevent such a catastrophic
development is to spread out the timeline during
which the epidemic happens.
bigger
We can do that by lowering the reproductive
number of the disease. Under normal circumstance one
sick person will infect two, three or even many more
healthy ones. We can lower that number by
prohibiting large congregations, by isolating
infected persons and by good hygiene.
People who test positive or show symptoms need to
be quarantined. Everyone needs to be made aware of
the dangers and learn how to avoid them. Washing
ones hands helps as soap easily destroys
the fatty lipid layer that forms the skin of the
virus.
The control measures China took in Wuhan
were designed to drive the reproduction numbers
down.
The effective reproductive number [in Wuhan]
dropped from 3.86 before interventions to 0.32
post interventions.
Some of the measures China took were severe but
they worked:
The daily Covid-19 onset and the control
measures across different periods
Source:
Evolving Epidemiology and Impact of
Non-pharmaceutical Interventions
on the Outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 in
Wuhan, China (pdf)
bigger
South Korea has also demonstrated how quick and
decisive action can
keep the numbers manageable.
After the virus has passed through our societies
in two or three slow waves our communities will have
developed a sufficient basic immunity level. In a
year or two we may even have a vaccine against it.
The virus will then become a relatively harmless
addition to the ones we already know.
An example for this is the Hong Kong flu of 1968.
The then new H3H2 virus infected 500.000 Hong Kong
residents. In 1968 and 1969 it killed more than a
million people worldwide even though it had a death
rate below 0.5%. Our populations are now largely
immune to it and an H3H2 vaccine is now part of the
general cocktail of a flu vaccination.
No country will be spared by this virus and the
impact will be similar everywhere.
bigger
What must be done now is to flatten the curves,
to lower the number of Covid-19 infections so our
health care systems can cope with the epidemic.
In the United States the Sars-CoV-2 epidemic is
still seen as a Monday to Friday problem.
bigger
The reason for this is that the president and a
significant part of the U.S. population
have yet to understand the issue.
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump -
14:47 UTC · Mar 9, 2020
So last year 37,000 Americans died from the
common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and
70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life &
the economy go on. At this moment there are 546
confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths.
Think about that!
This is not a common flu. This is a NEW flu. We
have zero basic immunity against it. Without
countermeasures the number of cases will explode and
there will be many serious ones. They will overwhelm
the health care systems and that makes all the
difference.
All countries need to test as many people as
possible to isolate positive cases. People who test
positive but show no symptoms should not be send
home to their families. China has learned that doing
that only creates new clusters of cases as all
family members are then likely to get sick. Those
who develop symptoms must be isolated separately and
with access to care. Only the 20% who will develop
serious complications should be admitted to
dedicated hospitals.
The U.S. must take measures to make tests
available and free for all. It must also deliver the
necessary healthcare free of charges. The National
Disaster Medical System (NDMS) Definitive Care
Reimbursement Program
can be used to carry the costs.
There needs to be some form of incentive for
everyone to take sick leave when necessary. The
behavior below is dangerous but the man had likely
no other choice.
ABC News @abcnews -
1:24 UTC · Mar 8, 2020
#BREAKING: Authorities say a man with
coronavirus ignored instructions to self-isolate
pending test results, instead working several
shifts at Hobart's Grand Chancellor Hotel.
People must be made able to pay their bills even
when they are sent into quarantine. The simplest way
to achieve that is to make sick leave pay mandatory
by law. Undocumented immigrants must be able to seek
tests and healthcare without fear of deportation.
That requires a change in the current mandatory
notification scheme.
More economic measures will have to be taken to
restart the economy after the slump the pandemic
will cause. Large and diverse government spending
program will have the best effects. Tax breaks for
the rich will not do.
Today's market crash and Trump's
ignorant and disastrous handling of the pandemic
make it now less likely that he will get reelected.
The pandemic also guarantees that demanding medicare
for all will become a huge winner.
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