‘We’re going to have more deaths.’ Coronavirus vs. the flu. Influenza kills more people so everyone is overreacting, right? Wrong — here’s why
Quotes from article:
Coronavirus. It’s just like the flu, isn’t it?
Hundreds of thousands of people die of the flu every year, and people need to calm down. In the U.S., people are
stocking up on oat milk. Everyone should wash their hands for 20 seconds,
elbow bump, stop buying face masks because
they don’t protect against the virus, note that
airplane air is filtered 20 to 30 times an hour,
just avoid cruise ships, and relax. Right?
That appears to be the advice of some exasperated Americans on Twitter and Facebook
FB, -4.99%in recent days who despair at the long lines outside Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods
AMZN, -3.51%,and the panic buying and empty shelves at Costco
COST, -1.26%. “Toilet paper is golden in an apocalypse,” one customer
told MYNorthwest.com
‘This is additive, not in place of. Yes, the flu kills thousands of people every year, but we’re going to have more deaths.’
— —Amesh Adalja, a spokesman for the Infectious Diseases Society of America
Studies, however, suggest the differences between flu and coronavirus are more nuanced than some folks suggest. In fact, health professionals point out some very important differences between the COVID-19 epidemic and other viruses like the flu. For a start, there is no vaccine for COVID-19
and it could take many months or years. What’s worse, doctors fear the virus will mutate.
Why? The first known person was reported to have
contracted the virus on Dec. 1 in China. Today, it’s spread to nearly 100 countries. COVID-19 is still a relatively unknown and experts advise changing your behavior to prevent its spread. The New York Health Department said people should avoid taking mass transit, if possible. Italy has effectively quarantined one quarter of the population.
“It’s a little simple to think the novel coronavirus is just like flu,” [BBM] Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the John Hopkins Center for Health Security and a spokesman for the Infectious Diseases Society of America, told MarketWatch. “We don’t want another flu. This is additive, not in place of. Yes, the flu kills thousands of people every year, but we’re going to have more deaths.”
There are some 1 billion cases of influenza worldwide; up to 45 million cases in the U.S. per year, tens of thousands of deaths in the U.S., and
291,000 to 646,000 deaths worldwide. Seasonal flu has a fatality rate of less than 1%; Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that figure is closer to 0.1%.
Influenza and COVID-19 come from a different family of viruses. COVID-19, also called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 or SARS-CoV-2 is brand new. Influenza has been around for more than 2,000 years. Scientists say the “novel influenza A viruses” in humans lead to a pandemic, approximately once every 40 years. But, again, flu vaccines exist.
To put that in perspective: The worst flu season on record in the U.S. (2017 to 2018) outside of a pandemic killed approximately 80,000 Americans. The four other coronavirus strains that already exist are responsible for around 25% of our common colds, Adalja added. “But it doesn’t seem like there is cross immunity with this coronavirus as there are with the other coronaviruses.”
While estimates vary on coronavirus fatality rates, they still remain far higher than the flu. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization, recently said that COVID-19 has a fatality rate of 3.4%. That’s more than previous estimates of between 1.4% and 2%, although some observers say his estimates were skewed by the higher death rate in China.
‘Because there’s no proven therapy or vaccine, as coronavirus spreads it threatens to put a much greater burden on health systems than flu does.’
— —Antigone Barton, editor of ScienceSpeaks
COVID-19 rates may fall closer to those of the flu, assuming many more people are infected.
JAMA released this paper analyzing data from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention on 72,314 COVID-19 cases in mainland China last month, the largest such sample of this kind. The sample’s overall case-fatality rate was 2.3%, in line with the earlier estimates.
Fatality rates also vary dramatically, depending on the individuals. No deaths occurred in those aged 9 years and younger, but cases in those aged 70 to 79 years had an 8% fatality rate and those aged 80 years and older had a fatality rate of 14.8%. The rate was 49% among critical cases, and elevated among those with preexisting conditions to between 5.6% and 10.3%, depending on the condition.
“While both the flu and COVID-19 may be transmitted in similar ways, there is also a possible difference: COVID-19 might be spread through the airborne route, meaning that tiny droplets remaining in the air could cause disease in others even after the ill person is no longer near,” Lisa Maragakis, senior director of infection prevention at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, Md., wrote. [BBM]
Of course, there are similarities between influenza and COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. Both viruses are not treatable with antibiotics, and they have almost identical symptoms — fever, coughing, night sweats, aching bones, tiredness and, in the more severe cases of both viruses, nausea and even diarrhea. They can be spread by touch, coughing and sneezing.
Other differences between coronavirus and influenza lie in what we don’t know. Adults with the flu, which has an average incubation period of 2 days, can infect others 24 hours before symptoms develop and
up to 5 to 7 days after becoming sick. The incubation period for coronavirus is estimated at between 2 and 14 days, but little is currently known about its period of contagiousness.
Coronavirus appears to be transmitted with ease to about 2.3 people by each person infected in the community and those who are asymptomatic, said Antigone Barton, editor of ScienceSpeaks. “Because there’s no proven therapy or vaccine, as coronavirus spreads, it threatens to put a much greater burden on health systems than flu does, and greater than most or many are prepared for.”[BBM]
