Quote:
Originally Posted by Ichiran
You reckon it's just mental? All in the mind?
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To be clear, I don’t doubt the
potential seriousness of this outbreak. Nobody actually knows yet. Personally I suspect the doomsday merchants are wrong, as they usually are but that’s just me. The comparison with ‘flu is made because both are potentially serious respiratory infections yet ‘flu, which kills hundreds of thousands annually - i.e. is confirmed to be deadly serious - provokes little fear in the media or amongst the public. Yet this coronavirus outbreak, whose severity is unknown (though the mortality rate quoted thus far is almost certainly a
gross overestimate because the true number of infections is inevitably
much higher than the confirmed number - many people who contract it will be invisible to statistics and wouldn’t even know they have it) is headline news in places where it shouldn’t be news at all.
My response to your post was to point out that ER attendances are not a reliable proxy for severity of illness. It is, for example, estimated that up to 50% of casualty attendances in the U.K. are unnecessary.
It stands to reason that if you tell your population that there is a deadly infection whose symptoms are cough, coryza and fever and it’s spreading rapidly, a lot of people who have minor illnesses will turn up unnecessarily to hospital. It is one of several reasons why the media response to this phenomenon is irresponsible.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ichiran
Including all confirmed 180 deaths (increasing by 30 daily, still increasing) due to this virus over the past 5 days within a city? That's mild for you?
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I’m happy to debate you in good faith but I’m out of here if you’re going to deliberately misconstrue my words. ‘Flu kills
600,000 people per year yet for
most people it is mild and self limiting. I’ve had it at least twice and I was fine. Despite the hysteria, coronavirus is likely similar for most. Not all, obviously.