Flu++
Covid is NOT the Flu...
In our current click driven media environment, it’s hard to find a balanced perspective on the Covid crisis. The truth resides between the doomsday bunker scolds who implore us to "Lockdown until there's a cure!" and the toilet bowl lickers who insist that"Covid is just the Flu!"
I'd like to provide an alternative framework for thinking about Covid: Covid is not the Flu, Covid is the Flu++. What I mean by this is that Covid should not be thought of as some doomsday bug that will kill us all. It has many similarities to the Flu, just dialed up a couple notches. Allow me to elaborate:
Starting with the brass tacks, fatality rate. According to the CDC, our current best estimate provides the following survival rates for Covid compared to the Flu should one become infected:
(My Apologies that age ranges don't exactly line up, blame the CDC not me...)
Remarkably, for those under 50 your chances of surviving Covid are identical, if not better, compared to the flu?! Between 50-69 Covid is much worse than the flu but still 99.5%! and only over 70 does Covid because a substantial risk unlike what we would see with the Flu. It's the Flu, plus plus.
How about the fact that Covid is a new disease, that it is, "A disease with NO CURE..."? Allow me to point out that the Flu does not have a cure either. The Flu Shot won't help you once you are already infected. We do have many good treatments for the Flu, but as evidenced by the survival rates they aren't foul proof. The lack of good treatments for Covid is responsible for a lot of the difference from Flu in terms of current survival rates, yet those treatments are slowly getting better everyday. Again, based on treatments and cures, Covid is a couple notches worse than the Flu, it's the Flu++.
What about that vaccine? As we hear daily, Covid is a "Novel virus for which there is no preexisting immunity". We have vaccines for the Flu, and the CDC estimates how effective they are and how many lives they save. In 2017-2018 when an estimated 61 thousand Americans died from the Flu, the CDC estimated that fewer than 6,000 deaths were prevented by the vaccine. Even with a majority of persons in at risk age groups getting a vaccine, it still only managed to cut death rates by about 10% (see table 3). Flu vaccines help, but their effectiveness varies, so the lack of one for COVID so far may not be as important as we are meant to think.
So what is the point of this perspective? I think it informs us on how we each should go about living our lives in a world with Covid. Take what you do about the Flu, then ramp it up a notch or two, because this isn't the Flu, it's Flu++.
How should we go about dealing with Flu++? For those of us we never worry about the Flu, we need to resist being fearful of Flu++. We should take precautions to avoid spreading it to others, but we should continue to live essentially normal lives.
This includes children! If there's one distinct difference between Flu and Covid it's that while children are a chief vector in the spread of Flu, this it simply not the case for COVID.
As for those of us who, due to age or pre-existing conditions, already take the Flu season more seriously every winter, Flu++ requires a redoubling of those efforts. Until this thing goes away, or our treatments improve, these people should adjust there lives when possible to limit their chance of infection.
Even then, this thing could be around for years, so whatever preventative measures you take, they have to be sustainable for the long haul. 80 year olds survive the Flu less that 98% of the time, yet they don't lock themselves in their basements every Flu season from September to April... For an 80 year old, the risk of Flu++ is 5 Flu seasons at once! Treat this thing serious, but life must go on.
Lastly, notice that economy crushing statewide lockdowns aren't described above. We would never dream of locking down for the Flu, and we do not need to lockdown for Flu++ either!
Anyway 0 and 2...