What if “its not so serious” is being said to me by doctors?
Coz thats what I’m getting. When you compare this virus to TB or malaria, this is nothing… TB killed 63000 people in South Africa in 2018 (am unable to find 2019 data). That’s 5000 on average a month.
People die…its sad…but until the doctors in my immediate circle get concerned, I’m gonna trust them. They’ve been right so far
The precautions are also laughable. I’m told (again by a GP) testing negative is not actually confirmation you DON’T potentially have it and are spreading it. They also say there is NO point in testing unless you are actually symptomatic. We ALL know those temp thingies are joke (i couldnt get it to show me as over 30 degrees yesterday, they just waved me on).
Your doctors are idiots. If my dad gets COVID-19 then he probably won’t make it. He is a cancer survivor, over 60 years old and he had a heart attack during his surgery for his cancer. He has now been cancer free for a while but COVID-19 kills people like him.
You mention TB. TB is a completely treatable and curable disease. That’s the big difference between TB and COVID-19.
And yet more people die from that, and its not considered a pandemic. Isn’t that proving my point?
edit: please don’t misread these posts as me saying “its not serious at all and we should all run around naked and catch it”. I’m well aware that it is definitely serious to certain demographics, especially the elderly or those with compromised immune systems… I’m not insensitive to that…just wanna puut that out there
Pfft I will destroy you and eat you for breakfast.
Mortality (death) rates determine the frequency of deaths in a specified population during a specified interval of time. With a novel disease like COVID-19, however, mortality rates are unreliable at this point in time due to a variety of factors. The COVID-19 mortality estimate may be unknown as we do not know exactly how many cases there are. This is due to underreporting and people with minimal or mild symptoms not being tested, and therefore not being factored into the total number of confirmed cases. This subsequently makes mortality estimates difficult. Some reports estimate mortality rates for COVID-19 anywhere from 1.5 to 20 percent, 20 percent being one of the highest estimates at the centre of the outbreak in Wuhan, China. In contrast, untreated TB has an average mortality rate of 45 percent. However TB is not only preventable but treatable, and the global success rate reported by the WHO for those who started TB treatment in 2018 was 85 percent.
Thus, TB, if untreated, is technically deadlier than COVID-19, though one must consider the diseases themselves and other risk factors: age, HIV status, the quality of the body’s immune systems, etc. Up to 50% of people with active, untreated TB disease may die, much more than even the highest projected mortality estimates for COVID-19, making it critical to address prevention and treatment options for TB. The advantage for TB is that we do have treatments that work, including for drug-resistant forms of TB. We also have treatments for the TB infection stage to prevent a person from becoming unwell with TB. Currently there is no proven treatment for COVID-19 except supportive treatment, however there are many trials underway.
The big difference between TB and COVID-19 is that it’s both preventable and treatable.
Although data for SARS-CoV-2 are still emerging, early data indicate that the reproduction number (R0) is 2.2. This means that each person with COVID-19 can pass the infection on to an additional 2.2 individuals.
The R0 value for TB in low-incidence countries is below 1; there may be little chance of infecting others and no TB outbreaks take place. However, in low-income settings with a high TB burden, the R0 value for TB has been as high as 4.3 in China (2012) and 3.55 in Southern India (2004 to 2006). The R0 value for TB is also variable as it is affected by other factors, such as environmental conditions and the health of population. So in settings with more TB in general, crowded living conditions and risk factors, such as malnutrition and HIV infection, contribute to a higher R0 value.
TB won’t cause the hospitals to overflow. The rate of infection with COVID-19 is the big problem. It’s extremely infectious. If left unchecked then chances are we will all get it. Chances of us all getting TB is slim to none. I don’t have to go to the shops and worry that I will get TB. Because in our neighbourhoods it’s mostly in check.
And in the small likelihood that we do get infected then we can go get treated by a doctor.
If you get COVID-19 and you are one of the unlucky people who it affects badly then you are screwed.
That’s a short rundown of why COVID-19 is treated the way it is. Especially in comparison to TB in 2020.
So TB is completely treatable and curable… while also being quite infectious… and yet still killed 63000 people in our country in a year without any uprising from our hospitals (we here in EC have many TB patients in our wards), more than what a up-till-now uncurable covid-19 has done with higher infection rates. To me that is numerical proof that covid is less harmful to our general population than TB (something your piece above seems to agree with as well). What am I missing regarding the numbers? You also admit the mortality rates of Covid (similar to TB) are uncertain, due to the unknown (but agreed-upon that its high) variable that a large portion of the population are asymptomatic or show minimal signs of having it and that is highly likely way more people have it and get over it than the active cases are showing (which therefore would lower the relative/total lethality of it). This can be further seen by that percentage of active cases vs deaths from Covid dropping as testing globally has become more aggressive.
(taken from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ )
EDIT: since I either missed the bottom of your post or you edited it afterwards while i was writing the above, gotta add this:
Agreed 100%. The stats I’m being told by the doctors in my area are quite rough. Not a single person that they’ve had to put on a ventilator has actually survived. So if you’re bad enough that they need that equipment, its not good…
Again I’m not saying that this is a case of the sniffles, it is incredibly dangerous to certain demographics who I would 100% advise to needing to take extra precautions, and I’m happy to take precautions on their behalf to try minimize their risk to me (if thats worded right, i mean the chance they get it from me without me knowing). I’m saying to a large percentage (91.32% and rising is the number as of writing, and we agree this is a ceiling number as there are unknown numbers of ppl who get it and show no symptoms and aren’t “counted”) this is not as “world-ending” as we were led to believe…remember those fake pics or central park with bodies being stored there?
That’s where you are making your logic fault. South Africa has gone into lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19. If we didn’t do that then the amount of people infected and dying in South Africa would have been much higher.
The lockdown prevented a catastrophe.
Yesterday 112 people reportedly died in a day here in South Africa. That’s despite us being in a lockdown and despite people wearing masks and washing hands and taking precautions.
So your logical fallacy is that you are comparing two sicknesses, one during a lockdown and one not.
I was under the impression we went into lockdown to delay the spread, not prevent it? There’s even talk above that we extended lockdown so we wouldnt have its peak coincide with the flu season (which incidentally is also waaaay more harmful to Children than Covid 19, but thats not relevant, thats just demographics again).
112 people died. It is sad (no this is NOT sarcasm). But for that number to bear relevance to your argument and not be anecdotal, you need to show me how many people died in a day in South Africa from any other factors. Thousands of people die every day… we are a massive population. What percentage of that is Covid? This is before we even get into the conspiracy (yet seemingly entirely plausible if you listen to JRE hehehe) of people dying of other unrelated htings and it being counted as a Covid death so that hospitals get more funding/grants.
Semantics. We are delaying by trying to prevent it from spreading too quickly.
Irrelevant. We know how quickly COVID-19 spreads if left unchecked. We saw in Italy and other countries the damage it can cause.
Your original point was that “it’s not serious”. Did you see what happened in Italy as an example? Hospitals couldn’t handle the influx of people. People were left to die. Because hospitals were full you couldn’t get treated for other illnesses.
I watched some videos of doctors talking how bad it was. It’s shocking.
The reason why we are in lockdown is for the health system to prepare. Are they doing a good job doing that? Not in my opinion. Is COVID-19 serious enough to warrant a lockdown? Most definitely so. Hence the reason why it was handled the way it was.
I’ve also seen numerous reports on how Italy was quite the perfect hotspot for this virus, with a high number of Old/compromised people living in enclosed spaces with younger people, and that it basically highlighted a real problem with how Italians live in terms of hygiene. I’ll try to find sources for this but I actually have to get back to work so I think that means you win by default
How does it compare to say Sweden where they said “nah screw lockdown, we’ll wing it”. What are their rates? I’m actually curious coz I know the world was “watching” to see what happens to them…I know many european countries are slowly admitting/realising they were way too aggressive with their lockdowns. (again i’m sorry I don’t have a source )
We can at least be happy in that we both agree with your bottom statement. The reason for the lockdown was wasted. We did not prepare sufficiently. The lack of training/education in our local hospitals that I hear about (the nurses are happy to treat TB patients and go into their rooms but REFUSE to go anywhere near COVID patients, leaving a small number of doctors to do it) is staggering. They simply are not equipped…
Gotta love Wyvern with her popcorn just watching us and liking both sides
Anyone else is free to chime in on either side of this opinion. I’m happy to find out if I’m living in a bubble and the only one to think this way. Won’t find out if we don’t have this conversation…
Also kindly note that this started because I said I was being told this is not SO serious…not that this isn’t serious at all…you mention semantics but there is quite a distinction there. as there is enough of a difference in saying you delay something versus saying you prevent something.
Have a good day sir, I hope you don’t hate me. I don’t hate you <3
For seven of the last 14 days, Sweden has had the highest number of deaths per capita in the world. “Sweden hasn’t changed very much at all,” says Paul Franks, an epidemiologist at Lund University . “But because things have changed in other countries, you’ve noticed the change in the relative death rates.”
The report says the comparison is particularly stark when compared to Sweden’s neighbours, which have similar cultural practices and healthcare systems – it has almost four times as many deaths as Norway, Finland and Denmark combined.
So, Wired asks, what went wrong? How did Sweden go from a poster child for the lockdown sceptics to one of the worst-hit countries in Europe?
Haha I don’t hate you. Sorry if I sound too serious. I’m wasting my time on this while working. I just don’t get how people can’t see the seriousness of it all.
do appreciate the sweden link, thats very interesting.
Wanna repeat, just remembered it when you brought up Italy so was genuinely curious what that outcome has been. so thanks will read fully when i can.
We can have one serious discussion in amongst all our super cereal gaming chatter.
What I especially like about this issue is that it’s not political and it’s not religious. If it is done the way @Mottamort and @Solitude have demonstrated here it is purely intellectual and I live for that stuff.
Don’t want to chime in just yet, because I don’t think any point on either side was missed and don’t want it to feel like a dogpile .
Bummer, I actually like both political and religious debates (they’re the most interesting)… although, things can get serious / heated quite quickly so I do understand why they’re banned / avoided here.
As for this debate, I’ll maybe just ask this.
If TB is so infectious and dangerous, how come I (or anyone I know) have never been actively concerned with catching it? I actually don’t even know anyone who does have it.
Also, the people who die from TB, were they treated in time, untreated, treated too late or a combination of all the options (at what percentages though)?
(I literally know nothing about TB)
How do I give kudos to @Mottamort and @Solitude? The idea of CIVILISED and CONSTRUCTIVE debate can take place is amazing, but for it to happen on the INTERNET!?!?!
2020 is getting weird.
But thats why I love MEW!
Having had my one friend’s uncle die from COVID-19, and then his step-mom test positive and go in a quick decline of health, I have to admit I am leaning way more towards playing it safe than write it off as an over hyped disease. It has hit close to home. I now know people who have died from COVID-19 and have not heard of or know anyone who had died from the flu.
Yeah, I believe there is a decent balance to be had. I said that from the beginning when people were completely freaking out and panic buying and I’m still saying it now that people are going to the opposite side of the spectrum and downplaying the dangers. So we’re obviously playing it safe as both my and my wife’s parents would effectively be issued a death sentence if they would get it.
One good thing about all this lockdown and social distancing is that maybe from now on people will start respecting personal space in public places.
I’ve also never heard of anyone dying from the flu. My personal (uninformed) opinion is that it is probably mostly people who didn’t get treated in time.
.