Here’s what we know about COVID-19: Not enough. One thing we do know is that you can’t liken the virus to the flu. While influenza has been studied for centuries, we are currently dealing with a novel virus, and we don’t know all the facts.
“The complete clinical picture with regard to COVID-19 is not fully known.” States the CDC website. This is an all new strain of coronavirus and our bodies have no immunity yet, nor do we have a vaccine.
Some things we know are that it is spreading rapidly, and that you can have the virus for up to two weeks without showing the symptoms. That means the number of cases is most likely higher than reported. People won’t get tested unless they show symptoms, and if they aren’t symptomatic than they’ll go on with their daily lives, unknowingly spreading the virus.
You can’t make an accurate comparison to the flu. We can come up with figures on how many people have died from COVID-19 thus far, but we don’t know how many more will die by the end of the year. To say the flu is worse because it’s killed x number of people a year is missing the fact that the flu has a 1% fatality rate, whereas the current fatality rate is approximately 3.4% with the coronavirus. Just because not as many people have died of it yet, doesn’t mean it’s safer than the flu. Another thing to consider is that the majority of children who have died of the flu were unvaccinated, according to the CDC.
Take a look at the current fatality rate statistics posted by the World Health Organization:
Mortality increases with age, with the highest mortality among people over 80 years of age (CFR 21.9%). The CFR is higher among males compared to females (4.7% vs. 2.8%). By occupation, patients who reported being retirees had the highest CFR at 8.9%. While patients who reported no comorbid conditions had a CFR of 1.4%, patients with comorbid conditions had much higher rates: 13.2% for those with cardiovascular disease, 9.2% for diabetes, 8.4% for hypertension, 8.0% for chronic respiratory disease, and 7.6% for cancer
At this point, with the announcement of a pandemic, no one should still be downplaying the severity of COVID-19 or comparing it to the flu. This is not to incite panic, but to spread awareness of this dire situation.
Stay safe and stay informed.