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So I wonder what would happen...


Road Runner

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...If all the nightly news shows led off the first ten minutes of every show discussing the typical flu "epidemic" during the flu season?

:o

The CDC estimates that since October 1, there have been approximately 40 million new cases of the flu in the US, resulting in approximately 500,000 hospitalizations and an estimated 36,000 deaths.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm

That's averages out to about 270,000 new flu cases per day, resulting in approximately 3,300 hospitalizations and 240 deaths each and every day from Oct 1 until Feb 29.

Would we all panic;  consider closing schools and businesses, cancel large events, and stockpile food and supplies???   :huh:

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I was looking into this earlier....  I'm not sure why the flu isn't mentioned.  Using the CDC's numbers, it has about a 5% mortality rate, which is higher than Corona virus. It's not the typical "per capita" argument we hear.  

My guess is that if people knew how deadly the flu is, the anti-vaxxers would lose most of their momentum.

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13 minutes ago, Forum Administrator said:

I was looking into this earlier....  I'm not sure why the flu isn't mentioned.  Using the CDC's numbers, it has about a 5% mortality rate, which is higher than Corona virus. It's not the typical "per capita" argument we hear.  

My guess is that if people knew how deadly the flu is, the anti-vaxxers would lose most of their momentum.

I think this might go back to the "People totally suck at math" thread!

1 hour ago, maddmaxx said:

You're right.  Coronavirus isn't important.

You don't like a false equivalency?  But realistically, it is too early to put the coronavirus into a "bucket" of where it falls. Considering it may ultimately have a higher mortality rate, and be slightly more contagious, and it has no vaccine, it will be something to pay attention to.

Panic? No. Concern? Justified.

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19 minutes ago, Forum Administrator said:

I was looking into this earlier....  I'm not sure why the flu isn't mentioned.  Using the CDC's numbers, it has about a 5% mortality rate, which is higher than Corona virus. It's not the typical "per capita" argument we hear.  

My guess is that if people knew how deadly the flu is, the anti-vaxxers would lose most of their momentum.

I believe the death rate for flu is an order of magnitude lower than that or .135%  https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

influenza burden chart hi-res graphic

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Just now, maddmaxx said:

I believe the death rate for flu is an order of magnitude lower than that or .135%  https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

The plus side is that any efforts to reduce the coronavirus will HELP immensely with the flu too!  This is a Win-Win!

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estimates that 69,894 Americans died of drug overdoses 

People who die each year from their own cigarette smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke.

An estimated 300,000 deaths per year are due to the obesity epidemic 

Over 37,000 people die in road accidents each year

788 total drowning deaths, an average of 4.3 deaths per day

 

I'm not going to panic..Why are my stocks going down

more than 4

80,000

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So if you're around smokers, get the hell away from them.  The same applies here to both the flu and coronavirus.  The difference being is smoke is visible and the flu virus has been around for thousands of years and it even has vaccinations.  Trying to equate covid-19 to the flu isn't actually apples and apples.

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5 minutes ago, Dottles said:

So if you're around smokers, get the hell away from them.  The same applies here to both the flu and coronavirus.  The difference being is smoke is visible and the flu virus has been around for thousands of years and it even has vaccinations.  Trying to equate covid-19 to the flu isn't actually apples and apples.

True.  I've had my flu shot this year but I've been procrastinating on getting my Corona shot.  Most flu deaths across the globe involve people who haven't had the shot.

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41 minutes ago, Forum Administrator said:

I was looking into this earlier....  I'm not sure why the flu isn't mentioned.  Using the CDC's numbers, it has about a 5% mortality rate, which is higher than Corona virus.

...any disease pandemic with  a 5% mortality rate would not need to be on the evening news to get our attention.

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List of human disease case fatality rates

...apparently, this new virus (if the 3.7% fatality rate holds, and it probably won't once testing is more available for the less severe cases), hits the chart right above the Spanish Flu of 1917-18.

That one killed a bunch of people, but for some reason spared the old and took the younger, healthier population.

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A long time ago we had a reporter come to a training to talk to us about how to tell the public what we do. He made the following statement. “News is what people are talking about or what they should be talking about”. Seems like the media controls the second part of that statement pretty well. 

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2 minutes ago, Forum Administrator said:

Not really, I just misread the numbers.  It's 5% of the people who are hospitalized for the flu end up dying.  I was reading it too quickly.  

 

Well, heck! We have WAY too many "People suck at reading comprehension!" threads here for me to bother linking to them...

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5 hours ago, Road Runner said:

...If all the nightly news shows led off the first ten minutes of every show discussing the typical flu "epidemic" during the flu season?

:o

The CDC estimates that since October 1, there have been approximately 40 million new cases of the flu in the US, resulting in approximately 500,000 hospitalizations and an estimated 36,000 deaths.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm

That's averages out to about 270,000 new flu cases per day, resulting in approximately 3,300 hospitalizations and 240 deaths each and every day from Oct 1 until Feb 29.

Would we all panic;  consider closing schools and businesses, cancel large events, and stockpile food and supplies???   :huh:

I've been making the same case here and elsewhere with varying degrees of support and skepticism.

There HAVE been times when schools have been closed due to the flu, but it's when it's been much fiercer than this year and way beyond the coronaviruses effects.

The problem is a combination of media sensationalism and the fact we don't know how deadly the coronavirus is and if it's seasonal.  The last I looked, the CDC was saying that 80% of coronavirus cases were common cold-type cases, but 3% required hospitalization. Nations with weak health care like China, Iran, etc. are the ones with lots of deaths and we aren't told what the flu does in those places.

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On 3/9/2020 at 1:14 PM, Zackny said:

A long time ago we had a reporter come to a training to talk to us about how to tell the public what we do. He made the following statement. “News is what people are talking about or what they should be talking about”. Seems like the media controls the second part of that statement pretty well. 

It’s the Agenda-setting Function. And the Sentry Function. Journalists inform about issues that have the potential to affect our lives. The public has a right to know. What would you have? A lack of information, nobody watching the frontier, “nothing to see here” while a threat looms?

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On 3/9/2020 at 3:20 PM, MickinMD said:

media sensationalism

Market-driven. When cable television introduced 24-hour channels, news delivery changed. Many channels are about not capturing stories, but sustaining attention to drive consumers toward advertisers. 

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  • 10 months later...
3 minutes ago, BuffJim said:

Covid-19 was a success. Waiting to see what new features are in Covid-21?

FTR, it is sad to see the medical/science community making the same Y2K mistakes :(  Come this time in year 2119, WTF are they going to call their version of COVID?

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