Comparing Covid-19 to the Flu

"MrSnrub" (sv100) 05/20/2020 at 14:51 • Filed to: None

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An interesting read, if perhaps not contrarian and reactionary enough to be truly “free thinking”

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Can we accurately compare the toll of the flu to the toll of the coronavirus pandemic?

To do this, we have to compare counted deaths to counted deaths, not counted deaths to wildly inflated statistical estimates. If we compare, for instance, the number of people who died in the United States from COVID-19 in the second full week of April to the number of people who died from influenza during the worst week of the past seven flu seasons (as reported to the CDC), we find that the novel coronavirus killed between 9.5 and 44 times more people than seasonal flu. In other words, the coronavirus is not anything like the flu: It is much, much worse.

LongbowMkII > MrSnrub 05/20/2020 at 15:13

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Also people love to ignore that covid deaths are IN ADDITION to whatever else regularly kills us and our various systems are designed around. Particularly when our systems are designed to minimize margins. Being prepared for 110% of normal capacity is more expensive than being prepared for 102% of normal capacity. 99.9% of the time  it’s not a problem.

jimz > MrSnrub 05/20/2020 at 15:13

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SA is just a liberal rag.

/s

MonkeePuzzle > MrSnrub 05/20/2020 at 15:17

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HOW DARE YOU HAVE AN OPINION ON A THING!

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > MrSnrub 05/20/2020 at 15:22

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, the coronavirus is not anything like the flu: It is much, much worse.

thats coz this not regular flu... its kung flu (seriously...i cant believe the shitflingers in charge went with chinese flu over the much superior kung flu....thats got a ring to it man... A RING!)

Vlachen > MrSnrub 05/20/2020 at 15:23

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Is this still an argument? Maybe I’ve been successfully filtering the garbage that comes through my tube. Perhaps my distancing techniques have kept me safe from viral exposure of the digital/meme variety . Perhaps my jet assisted hearing loss has dulled out those who would say that kind of garbage, because I haven’t heard it since February or so.

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > LongbowMkII 05/20/2020 at 15:24

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apparantly...in normal times the netherlands only needs 1100 icu beds for the whole country... so thats how many we had when the plague started

it was an issue.

MrSnrub > Vlachen 05/20/2020 at 15:29

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It’ s still an argument , e ven here on Oppo, I’m sorry to say

MonkeePuzzle > farscythe - makin da cawfee! 05/20/2020 at 15:30

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casual racism is rarely as pithy as it could be

MrSnrub > farscythe - makin da cawfee! 05/20/2020 at 15:30

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“kung flu” is too irreverent to stoke enough anger to start WW3 with China

TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. > MrSnrub 05/20/2020 at 15:31

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I don’t know, I think the entire scientific community intentionally lying to the public in order to checks notes destroy the American way of life is far more likely than what an article from a tabloid like Scientific American is trying to say. 

My bird IS the word > MrSnrub 05/20/2020 at 15:32

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You are also comparing something we shut the country down to prevent vs something we havent. Also, somethin g for which a vaccine exists vs something that doesn’t

Not really a good comparison in any event

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > MonkeePuzzle 05/20/2020 at 15:36

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if trump had half the charming racist asshat skills of bojo...it’d be kung flu

wich is at least funny and racist...

(i mean... bojo also came up with operation last gasp as a name for getting more ventilators.... that shits funny)

MrSnrub > My bird IS the word 05/20/2020 at 15:39

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Probably not , doesn’t stop people from trying to in order to prove a point though

Vlachen > MrSnrub 05/20/2020 at 15:49

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Perhaps my reemergence was ill timed and I should fade back into the gloaming.

MrSnrub > TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. 05/20/2020 at 15:51

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I’m a completely nonpartisan and unbiased person , but the EVIL LEFT is wrong about this and I hate them and we should do the things that, by pure coincidence, Trump says we should do . I am very smart

ZHP Sparky, the 5th > TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. 05/20/2020 at 15:52

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Not just the global scientific community, but global leaders themselves who span a very vast swatch of political ideologies. Again - them all shutting down their economies and putting their countries in enormous hardship, just to destroy American society and take Trump down. Damn, this guy really isn’t very popular is he, despite how he keeps claiming that he’s improved America’s position in the world?! 

ClassicDatsunDebate > farscythe - makin da cawfee! 05/20/2020 at 15:54

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I prefer Tom Hanks Disease

Jb boin > MrSnrub 05/20/2020 at 15:56

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Already left this earlier on another Oppo post but its relevant here too , about the difference of deaths between last year and this year : https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronavirus-missing-deaths.html

TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. > ZHP Sparky, the 5th 05/20/2020 at 16:06

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Some mysteries will never be solved, like why is the sky blue? Or why does it get dark when the sun goes away? Some things are just best left unanswered .

TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. > MrSnrub 05/20/2020 at 16:07

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Very smart , you have the best ideas. Some people even say best ideas.

gettingoldercarguy > farscythe - makin da cawfee! 05/20/2020 at 16:19

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Shhhh

DipodomysDeserti > MrSnrub 05/20/2020 at 16:21

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Please share with me how you’ve erased bias from your mind.

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > gettingoldercarguy 05/20/2020 at 16:27

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what? i didnt catch that

lol... tbh.. i was pretty surprised we have so few icu beds... we have hospitals galore... but then...i guess..not many people need the icu on a normal day... and certainly not for weeks on end

DipodomysDeserti > MrSnrub 05/20/2020 at 16:28

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Pretty dangerous article claiming we wildly inflate public health mortality rates for diseases we have vaccines for, and that just because you don’t see someone die from something, means people aren’t dying from it. Also, no shit this thing kills more people than the flu, we have vaccines and antivirals for the flu. My aunt is an MD, and she thinks it’s a Chinese conspiracy. 

H1N1 (a current mutant of the Spanish Flu) just caused a pandemic a few years ago.

This article is an anti vaxxers wet dream.

For those of you who haven’t taken a health based course in a while, I would suggest ignoring articles that contain the terms “stock market”, “Donald Trump”, “Democrats”, “R epublicans”.

This guy is probably a great ER doc, but he would make one shitty public health official. Rand Paul is an MD, maybe we should get his take on this (we shouldn’t).

gettingoldercarguy > farscythe - makin da cawfee! 05/20/2020 at 16:29

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I was just saying not to talk about reality.  It's offensive to many.  ;)

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > gettingoldercarguy 05/20/2020 at 16:30

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ooooo righto gotcha :)

no worries mate

im okay with offending many

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. 05/20/2020 at 16:34

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And magnets? How do they work

MrSnrub > DipodomysDeserti 05/20/2020 at 17:00

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I’ve never seriously claimed to be either unbiased or nonpartisan , and I’m irritated by people who say they’re either of those things with a straight face right before engaging in obviously partisan shit-slinging. For the record, neither my previous comment nor this one were referring to you

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > DipodomysDeserti 05/20/2020 at 17:14

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I saw this week that the Democrats had recruited Brazil to play along with their virus hoax. But your point is well made. Something I’ve observed is that in my case at least, when I point out that I must possess bias, it makes certain more progressive people angry that I’ve beaten them to the punch, or preempted them from having an excuse to point it out. I do not consider this to be a constructive approach on their part.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > MrSnrub 05/20/2020 at 17:15

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Ooh, I love it when you get ironic.

MrSnrub > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 05/20/2020 at 17:18

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You might have me confused with someone else?

DipodomysDeserti > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 05/20/2020 at 17:20

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My brother is a newspaper editor and writer. I find it hilarious when peop le attack reporters for being biased. Of course they are, they’re people. It’s the public’s job to determine if their bias is altering their work to an appreciable degree.

MrSnrub > DipodomysDeserti 05/20/2020 at 17:24

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I don’t really agree with the part about changing the CDC’s flu calculations, but I think the main point that flu and covid-19 numbers are calculated differently and not really comparable was a relevant one . We’re not really going to know how bad covid was until we can compare the total death rate this year with previous years, which will take a long time, and even then it will only give a general idea at best.

MrSnrub > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 05/20/2020 at 17:46

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Actually nevermind, was confused by what you meant by ironic but I get it now

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. 05/20/2020 at 19:28

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I guess we’ll see when the domestic violence, homicide and suicide numbers come in. Everybody talks like “shutdown” has no human consequence. At least everybody that has a steady paycheck and steady income likes to maintain that conceit.

How ever, the human toll of sustained high rates of joblessness are well known.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > MrSnrub 05/20/2020 at 19:33

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Sadly , the human costs of sustained high rates of joblessness are well known. “Sustained shutdown” is taking it s toll via suicide, domestic abuse and homicide rates. I guess we can debate whether those numbers are “inflated” in a year. But anybody that says “shutdown” is just an inconvenience is not playing straight with the data.

And, any research report (like the one linked above) about this that doesn’t acknowledge the mortality rates by age, is also glossing over what should be a key takeaway. Otherwise we’d do crazy stuff like sending active cases back into elder care centers— and no sane leadership would do that.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > DipodomysDeserti 05/20/2020 at 19:35

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Generally, these just piss me off when they omit the key age-distribution data. It’s from “Scientific American”, but if this is the best they’ve got to print right now? Their stock just dropped.

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > gettingoldercarguy 05/20/2020 at 22:38

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Theres what 33 icu beds per 100k in the US . W hats the big deal that 32 beds for everyone else?

/s

Dr_Watson > MrSnrub 05/20/2020 at 22:57

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Have a picture to drive the point home.

https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/not-like-the-flu-not-like-car-crashes-not-like

duurtlang > gmporschenut also a fan of hondas 05/21/2020 at 10:35

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“Tide goes in, tide goes out. (...) You can’t explain that .”