949
New Covid wave has begun and masks should be worn again, scientists warn
(www.independent.co.uk)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
949 points (93.3% liked)
World News
32349 readers
523 users here now
News from around the world!
Rules:
-
Please only post links to actual news sources, no tabloid sites, etc
-
No NSFW content
-
No hate speech, bigotry, propaganda, etc
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
So that's almost twice as bad as the flu.
I mean, that's one way to look at it. I looked at it as only a couple percent higher death rate than the flu. Either way, a little less than 2x is way better than like 5x worse.
Obviously it's better than before, but it's also worth keeping in mind these deaths are in addition to the flu.
Also, there are good and bad flu seasons. I see no reason for COVID to not be the same.
Even if we pedantically accept that 'almost double' is really 'just a few percent higher' while we're looking at a single digit likelihood, 'just a few percent more' than for the flu is a lot more people in overall numbers with something that spreads far quicker than the flu. We could get the death rate of Covid down to ½ the rate for the flu but if infections are more than double (this is just an example, I don't know the actual stats on this one), it still means Covid would be more deadly. Unless I'm missing something obvious.
COVID is basically a year round disease where flu is seasonal. So yeah it's gonna produce about an order of magnitude more death with just a few percent higher death rate.
That's how I understood it, too. Turns out it's a difficult thing to comprehend, though.