Is Covid worse than the flu? People keep posting memes and comments that Covid-19 is no worse than the flu, or there’s less than 1% chance of death from it, or some variation thereof.
Oh I wish such ideas were true! To even consider such notions is to be ignoring *all the available evidence* to the contrary.
For example it ignores the huge impact all the hygiene, masks, distancing and movement restrictions have had; it ignores the impact of rapid response contact tracing efforts; it ignores the impact of freely and readily available testing for anyone concerned, symptomatic or in high risk situations; and it ignores the impact of some of the best free medical care in the world (here in Melbourne Australia).
It also ignores the simple math involved.
(To learn about the math you can use this interactive explainer created by someone actually qualified to explain it all: https://ncase.me/covid-19/. As a lay person just making sense of it, below is my summary of the situation with recent real world statistics)
All of those containment efforts have kept the infection rate in the population so incredibly low (Melbourne has one of the best results of all modern industrialised Western cities of comparable size).
Of the infected, it has meant that the large % of patients in Victoria that have needed intensive care (ICU beds, ventilators, health care staff to treat them etc) were able to get treated and be given the best chance of avoiding death (currently about 9% of all current cases in Victoria are requiring hospitalisation: https://www.health.gov.au/…/coronaviru…/covid-19-in-victoria).
Increase the number of infection cases and you steadily increase the total number of people needing hospitalisation… and that rapidly exceeds available hospital beds, and the death rate starts climbing. In the USA, where this is arguably happening, the case-fatality-rate is sitting around 5% (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/).
For comparison the influenza in Australia usually has an average case-fatality-rate of 0.35% (avg of 2014-2018: slide 17: https://www.immunisationcoalition.org.au/…/1-Barr-ASM-2020-…).
The situation as of 28th August 2020 is that Victoria (https://www.dhhs.vic.gov.au/coronavirus) had recorded 18,714 cases and 485 deaths = a case-fatality-rate of 2.59%. Australia wide it was 25,322 cases and 572 deaths for a national case-fatality-rate of 2.25%.
These seem like small numbers, being percentages. And there are lots of details on data collection that make direct comparisons difficult between countries. But even so, taking the lower figure of only a 2.25% national case-fatality-rate and you’re talking over 6 times the deaths compared to the flu. And this is AFTER all of the extraordinary measures taken to contain it and to treat it.
Without the containment measures taken, the reproduction rate for covid-19 is exponential: meaning it spreads so rapidly that you would quickly get the majority of the population infected. So with Australia’s population of approx 25 million, assuming some avoid it, some get hospital treatment, and lets be even more conservative on the case-fatality-rate and therefore assume only 2%… we’re talking about 500,000 dead within 6 months to a year.
That’s considerably more than a few hundred or a couple of thousand MAXIMUM deaths annually due to all variations of the flu.
And if let to run wild through the whole population we’d quickly overwhelm the hospital system and see far higher case-fatality-rates in those unable to get intensive medical care…. it could easily be like in the USA with a 5% case-fatality-rate which would result in 1.25 Million people dead within a year.
For comparison Australia usually sees about 160,000 deaths from ALL causes annually.
And remember that covid-19 is having a similar age distribution in cases and deaths as does the seasonal flu. So we can’t dismiss Covid-19 as being unfairly over-reported in elderly comorbidity: it is comparable to the flu in that regard.
And despite our best intentions and efforts, working to boost our immune system through natural means – while great to do, and might help us recover – it will not stop us getting infected and passing it on to others: this is a novel virus, and NONE of us have immunity, no matter what our age or fitness or immune system health.
All of this is well before even considering the increasing evidence of horrendous multi-organ damage and ongoing health care issues for some who supposedly ‘recover’ AND that it is still highly debated if long term immunity is granted post recovery.
So this is a hell of a lot worse than any flu.
And this is NOT simply a matter of belief, keeping your vibe high, boosting your immune system, or being lied to by mainstream media etc. If you ignore the facts you simply can’t comprehend what’s going on: you’re out of touch with the reality of the situation, and you therefore can’t make informed decisions about your own health and safety – and your impact on other’s health and safety – let alone form an educated opinion about our government’s actions.
Luckily in Victoria and Australia generally the people responsible for caring for us do understand the issues, and you have been kept safe because of their actions, whether you understand or appreciate it or not.
I genuinely hope you all stay safe long enough to comprehend the reality of the maths directly involves you and your loved one’s lives. This is not a matter of being controlled through fear, but of confronting something very real and scary and responding from an empowered place of grounded reasoned knowledge.
Finally, I pray, that people stop uncritically consuming and spreading false information that can lead people to decisions that needlessly increase suffering and death: not just for them but for our community.
