Coronavirus

                                     Coronavirus

A culture with a commercial basis has risks. Demand may not correlate well with value. Therefore 90 Day Fiance out-polls NPR. So what we can learn from the press about The Virus may have a slant.

There is a lot out there about The Virus now. An astonishing element is how it varies from cultural/governmental structures. This is from an article by a M.D., Chris Centeno,  sent by Don.

The monster in the background of epidemics is the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic. This influenza virus had a 2-3% mortality rate and killed an estimated 30 million people worldwide (1.7% of the world’s population). That number is hard to compare to today because this was before modern medicine and intensive care techniques that began in the Korean War and Vietnam. Now we have ventilators, anti-virals, drugs, and modern life support. In 1918 we didn’t even have simple things that can save lives like the widespread use of oxygen.

The average seasonal flu kills between 291,000 to 646,000 people worldwide each year. Half a million people die from the average flu bug each winter. The CDC recently announced that the seasonal flu has killed 20,000 people in the United States this year with 350,000 hospitalizations. To date, worldwide, less than 4,000 people have died of Coronavirus. That’s less than 1% of the number of people who die from the seasonal flu. The panic is over the death rate per 100 patients reported out of Wuhan China, where the Coronavirus began. At one point, we heard very high numbers like 3-4% of everyone who contracted the disease or even twenty percent or more of the elderly. The average seasonal flu has much lower death rates.

The new death rate for seasonal flu worldwide, based on the most recent models, is 0.03% for people under 65 years of age and about 3% for the elderly over 75. You also need to keep in mind that most of the young who die from the seasonal flu have problems like a significant respiratory disease.

The most accurate data on case fatalities is from the only natural experiment that exists, the Diamond Princess cruise, a closed environment where we can accurately measure every person who gets sick and know the real number of people who perish based on that exposure. And it is probably not a robust population.

The cruise ship data shows a fatality rate of 0.85%. All of the people that perished were over 70, which is much more like the seasonal flu. In addition, the ability of the virus to spread was again, not that impressive as only about 20% got the virus. So while this bug is nasty, it’s NOT the middle-aged killer that the media has been making it out to be.

And some new numbers:
The outside of Wuhan Chinese death rate reported by their CDC is 0.4% (6)
The South Korean death rate being reported is 0.65% (7)

Other factors include environmental effects, like pollution. Here is an astonishing graph. 

And, China is also significantly denser (4-5X the US), which facilitates viral transmission. In addition, China has many “Wet Markets” where live animals are kept in tight conditions and then slaughtered on the spot to be sold as food. You honestly couldn’t create a more perfect animal to human viral transmission model. In fact, it’s believed the coronavirus began in an animal sold in these markets called a pangolin.

And this last interesting graph on flu infection patterns: