Covid-19 vs SARS and Ebola

[PuzzledObserver]

Covid-19 infection fatality rate - still uncertain, but in the presence of good health care, almost certainly less than 1%. More if hospital care not accessible. Symptoms vary widely in severity.

SARS - infection fatality rate roughly 15%. Symptoms always severe.

Ebola - fatality rate ranges widely between outbreaks - from 22% to 88%. Symptoms always severe.

I propose that COVID-19’s lower fatality rate is one of the 2 main reasons why it, rather than the other two, has become the pandemic (the other being asymptomatic and mild cases capable of spreading the virus).

If it killed more of the people who caught it, we wouldn’t have had the “it’s just the flu” and “it’s harmless to most people” narrative, lockdown would have been swifter, firmer and respected by more people. We would have pulled out all the stops to contain it, because the consequences of allowing something with 20% fatality (say) to spread widely would be unthinkable.

The fact that COVID 19 is mild for so many is precisely why it has spread effectively. People who are very ill (as they would be with SARS or Ebola) do not go about their business as normal infecting people. People who are asymptomatic and feel completely fine (or like they have a mild cold) do.

Eh? What you seem to be saying is - if X were more horrible, we would be doing more to avoid it. Well yes. I'm not sure what your point is, sorry?

SARS and Ebola didn't avoid being Pandemics, realistically, because of anything we did - they don't spread anything like as effectively because they make people much sicker much quicker.

Ebola is easier to contain because you are not infectious until you are symptomatic.

If you want to look at how tweaking the characteristics of a disease alters its spread and it's lethality, try playing on the app Plague Inc

The most reliable way to wipe out the entire population of the earth is to play as a virus, which spreads largely harmlessly across the world, then has a couple of mutations which make it more severe and harder to treat. And watch it win.

SARS and Ebola I believe are the most infectious when you have symptoms, therefore they are spread less. Also Ebola is spread by contact with body fluid not by being close to someone. The problem with the coronavirus is that it can be spread before a person has symptoms which means it is hard to contain.

My point is that a milder illness has the capacity to cause far more damage. Which is rotten luck for humanity. If it were more severe, we would have contained it, and not suffered the economic and social damage which is now inevitable.

A mild virus will always spread more because people feel not so unwell that they don’t want to go out. A severe virus makes a person stay at home and doesn’t get spread. So this is good news because evolution is towards a milder form of the virus.