A Message To The Those Who Pooh-Pooh The Idea Of Taking Precautions Against Covid-19 Because The Fatality Figures Are “So Low”

[Canary42]

A message to the Those who pooh-pooh the idea of taking precautions against Covid-19 because the fatality figures are “so low”

Tell me, do you cross the road without looking, after all the fatality figures are "low compared with normal seasonal flu". Right, so you do look, OK then does it not occur to you that taking that precaution is what keeps the figures down.

Well, the same applies to Covid-19, the figures are low because, unlike you boneheads, most peole are taking precautions. If you join in then we can get the figures even lower.



[Please don't derail this thread to discuss crossing the road while using mobile phones]

[naomi24]

//At the beginning of the month, so many on this site and elsewhere were regarding warnings about the scale as "scaremongering". Even 10 days ago some were pointing at the small scale in the UK. How quickly things have moved on.//

I think there is still a lot of scaremongering going on insofar as the survival rate, which far exceeds the death rate, is rarely mentioned. That said I do think in incumbent upon all of us, the fit and healthy included, to do whatever we can to protect not only ourselves but more importantly those who really are at risk, and for that reason we must follow government advice. Anything else is not only stupid - it's selfish in the extreme.

[TonyV]

Yes my partner is in high risk group, I am just doing essential shopping at local store.

[ladybirder]

It seems to me that some people are intimating that CVD-19 is instead of the flu when it isn't. It is blatantly obvious that deaths from the virus will be in addition to the usual flu toll.
I don't think I've worded that very well but you know what I mean, I hope.

[jim360]

// I think there is still a lot of scaremongering going on insofar as the survival rate, which far exceeds the death rate, is rarely mentioned. //

To an extent I agree with this, although the problem is that the death rate doesn't need to be that high in a widespread disease to cause the deaths of many tens, if not hundreds, of thousands. As best we can tell, somewhere in the region of 1% of all those who've had the infection end up dying because of it, which, if that holds -- and it does appear to -- is still scary whether or not that means 99% of those who are infected survive.

A disease doesn't have to mean the end of the human race in order to be frightening. 1% is still a lot. And the disease is still spreading. One of the many potentially frightening scenarios is what happens if the disease takes hold properly in places such as Africa or the subcontinent, where it could rip through unchecked. At the moment the growth in Africa is slow but it *is* spreading there, and with months to go before there's any cure that's quite frightening. Let alone in Europe, where it has already taken hold and is certainly not halfway through its cycle.

I've been spending the last two weeks trying to predict how many known active cases at the end of March there will be, restricting to the UK. I've been disturbed by how eerily accurate my forecasts have been on some days, and when they are wrong, they are usually underestimates. The uncertainty 11 days out is still large of course, but, put simply, when I said about a week ago that I was expecting 10,000 known active cases, that is almost certainly way too optimistic. Using the same model, I'm also expecting well in excess of 1,000 deaths in the UK by the end of March, and I should again stress that this is wild optimism.

I really, really, really hope I am utterly mistaken in these projections, and that we can get a grip on the disease. And, finally, I utterly agree with the last point you make.