ELI5: explain like im five: why is it being taken so seriously compared to other illnesses?

[CornflakeBreath]

Please can someone explain this simply to me because my Google fu is shit and my anxiety isn’t helping so I’m trying not to scare myself more than I need to!

Why is coronavirus being taken so seriously in comparison to the flu when the flu kills so many people each year?

Thanks

The death rate for covid-19 is higher than the flu even at lowest estimates. Flu normally kills 0.5% of the people it infects, there as the best estimate for one country with covid-19 is 1%. (If you have googled you seen higher death rates.)

In addition the way people suffer who get it and are severly ill is much worse.

If you are healthy, don't smoke and have no underlying health problems you may not even know you have it. However, because of this you need to ensure you take basic hygiene measures to ensure spreading it to others.

ensure you don't spread it to others - rather.

Plus there is a vaccine that covers most flus and many of us are immune already. This is new - no vaccines, no immunity to it anywhere in the whole human race.

1. It's incredibly contagious. It's still contagious in its incubation period, and people can have it and be asymptomatic.

1. We have no built up immunity as it's a completely new strain.

1. The death rate is higher than seasonal flu. Current estimates put it around 1% while seasonal flu is around 0.2%.

1. There is no cure or vaccine for at least 12 months.

Thanks for asking the question - my question is why is is taken so seriously when more people Te going to die from heart and vascular disease, smoking related diseases and diabetes yet we are not panicking about them?

Not being goady - a lot of premature Deaths in the world are preventable but we just crack on life and take our chance with risk factors such as alcohol, smoking diet etc

Because there are no vaccines and no natural immunity then huge numbers of people will get it (worst case is 80% of our population).

If even a small percentage of those people need hospitalisation, our hospitals do not have the beds or the staff to accommodate them.

If you need ventilation and there are no beds and no ventilators you will be sent home to die. This will happen to many people. Many people will die earlier than they would have done. This is not what happens every winter with the flu.....

More people die of flu currently only because this is a new virus and flu has been endemic in the population for years.

If the rate of growth of this virus increases unchecked it will kill far more than flu. This is because it is more infectious and has a higher death rate.

Also the number of people per 1000 who have corona who need hospital intervention is high. If everyone gets this at once the health system will be completely overwhelmed. We will run out of beds.

That’s my understanding of it simply put.

Working in a hospital I am very aware that we are creaking at the seams already. We won't cope with this virus and people will die.

I imagine death rates will be higher than they are currently predicted to be simply due to the fact we have deliberately chosen to keep the number of hospital beds at a very low rate per capita, much lower than the majority of other developed countries. The decisions made around NHS funding and staffing will come to bite and there will be no where to hide.

Thank you for all the replies! I see why now that we are all more worried about this one :( it’s scary stuff.

Cornflake the experts - especially the World Health Organisation - are saying that this has the potential to be as serious a pandemic as the 1918 flu pandemic. Which killed more people than the First World War. However by controlling people's actions and movements we might be able to control how fast it grows therefore a) giving people a better chance to be treated and b) developing a vaccine. So we need the whole population of the world to start behaving in ways they are not used to, which is a big ask. Hence really the more fuss we make the more people might get how serious it is and that they must change their lives for a while for the greater good. So good that you asked the question, it all helps to keep talking and explaining.

Also, because the infectious period while people are still asymptomatic is relatively long. With many illnesses it's only a couple of days - with CV it's been estimated as potentially up to a month (apparently). Huge risk of spreading it to lots of other people if it is a full month, or even a fortnight.

There are a few different factors for Covid-19 that, all put together, explain why people are so worried.

• There is no pre-existing herd immunity to Covid-19 and no vaccine, so it will spread through the population, potentially infecting 70-80% of the population.

• If you compare it to flu, many people have had one of the flu viruses before, and many people get vaccinated, so when the flu virus tries to spread, it doesn't always have people to spread to, and that stops it spreading as far or so quickly.

• Also if you do catch flu, it tends to knock you off your feet and the symptoms are obvious, so you don't go out and spread it. And those pesky little super-spreaders, small kids, tend to get badly hit by flu and so are stuck at home ill, whereas with Covid-19, they act and look well. One of the reasons Covid-19 is so dangerous is that, on top of the lack of herd immunity, most people won't be very ill with it. This may sounds like a good thing, but in terms of Covid-19 spreading, it's a bad thing, because children are walking round virtually symptom free, spreading the virus further, and most people have just a bit of a cough and a low fever and so walk around spreading it. That's why they are now isolating people with those symptoms. The problem is the media isn't always explaining it well. Many people are freaking out waiting for this horrendous virus to make them very poorly, but in reality they may already have it and not realise, or be chatting happily to someone with a mild cough who has it, and spreading it around to the vulnerable people who are more likely to get it badly. Viruses adapt to spread, and the best way to spread quickly is to leave your human host capable of going to school/work whilst infectious.

• The fatality rate does vary by age and other diseases you have (the older you are, and/or the more health problems like diabetes, heart problems, asthma, high blood pressure, COPD, cancer etc, the more likely you are to get it badly, and/or to die). Your outlook over the age of 70 is between 1/10 chance of death and over 80 is more like 1/5. If you're 70 and have a lot of other health problems you will likely do worse than a relatively healthy person of 70.

• If you are young and have no serious health problems then your chances of dying are less than 1 in a 100. So for every 100 people infected, only 1 would die, and that person who dies is more likely to have other serious problems.

• But even given that 70-80% of the population could be infected, even a small percentage (1-3%) fatality rate could mean that 1-3% of 66 million people (UK population) would die. That's a lot - like 50 million+ infected, and even just 1% of 50 million dying is 500,000 people in the UK alone.

• Compare that to in a UK flu season, about 17,000 people on average will die from flu in the UK. That alone already puts the NHS under a lot of pressure.

• [Infection rates, based on what's happening in China, Korea etc, are unclear, because there might be lots of people with no or mild symptoms who are not seeking medical help, (but can still infect others). If there are lots of undiagnosed cases then the infection rates and death rates may be lower than predicted. On the other hand a lot of infected people haven't died... yet. So that could make death rates higher. We don't know enough yet to be absolutely sure, but what we do know is bad enough to be worried.]

• Back to those sick people, we are not sure exactly how many of those infected get hospitalised, but it's probably about 1/10 to 1/20. When you apply this to the massive number of people infected, it's a terrifyingly high number, and means the hospitals will not have capacity, staff, beds, equipment. This means more people would die. That's why people are talking about "flattening the curve" to make the infection spread more slowly, to reduce the numbers hitting the hospitals at any one time.

• If you look at Italy, their health service is becoming overwhelmed, to the extent they are using "battlefield triage", this is where a doctor has to make a decision to save those who are (1) most likely to survive and also possibly (2) those who survive and will have the most life ahead. This means that infected and sick older people with multiple health problems may not be given beds in intensive care units if things get really bad here. It's something medics, from doctors to first-aiders dealing with catastrophes never want to have to do, but occasionally may have to to preserve as much life as possible. The question comes down to Q. Do I give the 1 last ICU bed and ventilator to (a) 85 year old man with heart, lung and diabetes issues - or (b) the 40 year old with no health problems. Even with treatment 1/4 of the 85 year old would die, but with treatment fewer than 1/100 of the otherwise healthy 40 year old would die.

• Whatever Donald Trump may say, there is no immediate prospect of a vaccine. Vaccines are being designed in concept but then you have to figure out how to mass produce them quickly and you have to go through various stages of testing for safety, from animals to humans, first small scale then large scale. This takes months at best, more like years. Again, flattening the curve by acting to reduce transmission means that later this year we may be able to improve survival through vaccines, or because we've discovered some medication helps treatment. (Too early to find a new medicine, but pre-existing medicines are being tested to see if anything helps at all.)

The good news: If you are under 60, preferably under 50, and have no major health complications like diabetes, cancer, lung problems, heart problems, then you are extremely likely to survive. In fact you could be walking round with it now without even realising. The older you are, and the more health problems you have, the more chance you have of serious illness. For those who are young, fit and healthy, it is incredibly important you act as advised, hand washing, social distance etc, isolate yourself with any relevant symptoms, in order to protect the most vulnerable in our society, and try to slow down the number of people being infected and admitted to our soon-to-be overwhelmed hospitals.

Simply put it’s not just the virus but that it’s completely new and there is no immunity to it. The numbers of people getting ill at the same time is as much of an issue as the actual illness.

We don’t have the resources for those kinds of numbers at the best of times never mind with a significantly reduced workforce.