Coronavirus vs swine flu

[utterlybutterly8]

Swine flu killed 457 people in the UK in 2009. When the outbreak occurred, Britain’s chief medical officer said that the best case scenario would be 3,100 UK deaths and the worst case around 65,000. So in the event, far fewer people perished from the disease than the officer predicted.

According to CNN, the global death toll from swine flu is estimated to be anything from 151,700 to 575,400.

I do remember some level of concern in 2009, but nothing like what we’re seeing now - I don’t recall major sports events being cancelled, people being advised to work from home and flight and movement restrictions being imposed.

So my question is - why is the coronavirus causing so much more disruption and alarm than the swine flu (which also seemed pretty serious at the time when you consider the predicted number of deaths)?

I’d be interested to hear what people think.

I was still nursing on a ward when swine flu hit, I remember how dangerous it was for pregnant women (I know of one death), I remember being very anxious because dd was a baby, BUT the vaccine was relatively easy to produce (we are used to making flu vaccines), as a nurse I was one of the first to be vaccinated, by the time they got to children being eligible it had pretty much disappeared so I didn’t get dd vaccinated. I think we are used to flu, this is very different.

I imagine coronovirus will kill many more people then swine flu especially in the UK.
Counties have been preparing for years for an influenza pandemic, the problem with covid19 is it is not flu and there is absolutely no immunity to it at all.

How can we say categorically there is no immunity?
Some people just don't get certain diseases.
E.g. some people never catch chickenpox, despite repeated exposure. Some people do not catch HIV despite exposure, etc, etc.
There may surely be some people that just won't catch this virus?

As an example, my children and husband had the most horrible flu at half term. Really very ill, all of them. Took sever weeks to fully recover. Despite me running around taking care of them all, dosing them up with Calpol, taking temperatures, running cool baths, feeding those that could manage food etc, I didn't catch it at all.

I also have been exposed to chickenpox three times when everyone I lived with had it, and never got it.

Death rate and rate needing intensive care are much higher so far. And there aren't enough intensive care beds.

Death rate and rate needing intensive care are much higher so far.

Is the death rate really much higher so far? We know coronavirus has killed 11 people since it arrived in the UK 1.5 months ago. But I can’t find any stats for how many people died from swine flu in the UK in the first 1.5 months - only that it killed 457 over the course of a year.

Worldwide this has killed a lot more than swine flu hasn’t it?

Covid-19 hasn't been publicised as having long-lasting effects on those that survive it.

But no one really knows yet.

I had swine flu then and nearly died due to not having family members capable of good judgement regarding care, yes I’m talking about my husband I was too ill to help myself and he was out of his depth we had 2 young children to look after and no family support as we only had his 2 old parents who obvs needed to say away as I was obvs contagious.

So by the time I was in hospital I was in a very bad way with pneumonia with 10% lung capacity recovery meant a lung operation a spell in ICU and a couple of months recovery

I literally have the scars to remember it by

Swine flu had a mortality rate of 0.02%. Covid 19 between about 1-6% - probably about 2%
That’s why it’s worse.

Flu pandemics can have much higher mortality rates - Spanish flu had a mortality of 3%. Hence the huge anxiety when a new flu comes along. Although some people were very sick we were lucky with swine flu.

My eldest daughter was part of a swine flu vaccination trial (no she was not a human Guinea pig, there were 2 vaccinations brought out and they wanted to do a study on which one was the most effective for children. They had both been licenced and were already in circulation!) And I was glad. We had amazing support while on the trial and a top experts mobile number to call anytime.

There wasn't as much of a panic with regards to buying stuff but people were very cautious and gp's were overwhelmed. The death rate was a lot lower than CV19 and it was announced daily in the media. I remember they did give up testing but at a later stage than they seem to of with CV19. I think when it was so rife in the community they just gave up testing and assumed everyone with the symptoms had it.