03-17-2020, 05:05 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-17-2020, 05:05 PM by Warren Dew.)
(03-17-2020, 11:49 AM)sbarrera Wrote: But, assuming that it is correct that COVID-19 is actually much more severe than the recent flus, there would have been the same issue with case overload that was experienced in 1918 with the Spanish flu and in Italy today. So there would have been no denying a problem. I would guess, based on the 2T v. 4T difference, that GI-led government would just get blamed no matter what they did - they would get accused of either overreacting or underreacting as fit the circumstances.
The idea that Covid-19 is much more severe than recent flus can't really be reconciled with the idea that Covid-19 is much easier to transmit than recent flus; if those were both true, the deaths from Covid-19 would necessarily be much higher than they actually are. For that matter, even considering only identified cases, Germany's fatality rate is barely higher than the average flu at 0.2%, so the idea that Covid-19 is especially severe is becoming more and more difficult to sustain.
The Spanish Flu was deadly in part because the postwar world was exhausted and unable to handle it, but also in very large part because antibiotics didn't exist to treat secondary infections. That's inapplicable to today's world. Italy is applicable but the Covid-19 deaths there don't match recent flu deaths yet, though they might yet due to massive mismanagement.