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Medicine Technology

Coronavirus 10 Times More Deadly Than Swine Flu, Says WHO (independent.co.uk) 265

Posted by BeauHD from the compare-and-contrast dept.
The coronavirus has proven ten times deadlier than the swine flu outbreak that spread across the globe a decade prior, the World Health Organization has confirmed. The Independent reports: The swine flu pandemic, which spanned a stretch of time between January 2009 and August 2010, saw more than 1.6 million confirmed cases, resulting in the confirmed deaths of 18,449 people. Now the World Health Organization's top official Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned the coronavirus pandemic currently gripping the planet has outstripped the fatalities caused by the H1N1 strain tenfold.

"We can only say what we know, and we can only act on what we know," he said. "Evidence from several countries is giving us a clearer picture about this virus, how it behaves, how to stop it and how to treat it. We know that Covid-19 spreads fast and we know that it is deadly -- ten times deadlier than the 2009 flu pandemic. We know that the virus can spread more easily in crowded environments like nursing homes. We know that early case finding, testing, isolating, caring for every case, and tracing every contact is essential for stopping transmission. We know that in some countries cases are doubling every three to four days. However while Covid-19 accelerates very fast it decelerates much more slowly. In other words the way down is much slower than the way up. That means control measures must be lifted slowly and with control."
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Coronavirus 10 Times More Deadly Than Swine Flu, Says WHO More

Coronavirus 10 Times More Deadly Than Swine Flu, Says WHO

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  • Cocksucking Bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SirAstral ( 1349985 ) on Monday April 13, 2020 @06:56PM (#59942950)

    "We can only say what we know, and we can only act on what we know,"

    We humans act on shit we do not know all the fucking damn time, it's one of the very reasons we create procedures, plans, contingencies... I mean fuck... if we ONLY reacted to what we did know... we would be fucking dead! Because you don't know when someone is going to murder you until they try... but we have enough sense to operate as though someone does not give a shit about others because that is the fact of life.

    More than enough reports are coming out that we knew more than enough to catch Covid-19 long before we needed further information.

    As usual... politics has fucked everyone over! And what are people doing? Again.. politics. Nothing is going to be learned other than this lesson. We are all fuck ups and we are going to continue to fuck up until something big enough comes along to make us realize that this constant fucking political bullshit is just that!

    • People fuck people over. Go back even two or three weeks and you see posters here claiming that this wasn't going to be a big issue in the US.

      Simply put humans are morons.

      • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        People fuck people over. Go back even two or three weeks and you see posters here claiming that this wasn't going to be a big issue in the US.

        Indeed. And all of them now either claim they never said that or do not remember they said that. As usual.

        Simply put humans are morons.

        Indeed. Not all of them, but those that are not are a minority. I expect the non-morons are pretty much the same group as the independent thinkers. That would be 10...15% or so. And, of course, even these people can be wrong, and that is routinely used by the morons to claim the non-morons must be wrong on everything where they disagree.

    • Politics didn't fuck this over (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday April 13, 2020 @07:43PM (#59943124)
      everything is politics. Politics are just people's actions in mass. There's still people behind that, and when you say "Politics fucked everything over" you shift blame. You give an out to the people who failed us: Our leaders.

      We've known this was coming since at least 2007 (debatably 2001). We ignored it because nobody wanted to pay for the preparations. Instead we got more wars and more Austerity.

      Those were decisions made by people. If you voted for the wars you made those decisions. If you voted for the Austerity you made those decisions. And if you didn't vote you made those decisions.

      Everything is politics. Sooner we come to grips with that the sooner we can stop running away.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        everything is politics. Politics are just people's actions in mass. There's still people behind that, and when you say "Politics fucked everything over" you shift blame. You give an out to the people who failed us: Our leaders.

        I disagree. Last time I checked, the US was a democracy. That means bad leaders are the result of bad votes. Yes, I realize the last presidential election had a bad and a worse option (and people chose worse, but that is besides the point). But there is a history leading up to that and it is shaped, ultimately, by the voters. And, unfortunately, it is the voters on both "sides". Maybe it is not clear from within the US, but the US has an incapable, arrogant and fundamentally amoral conservative big party an

        • We haven't been a democracy in ages [bbc.com]

          We could go back to one. It's not too late. But democracy requires a stable economy. And we haven't wanted to spend the money (in increased wages and social programs) needed to make that happen.

          It's not a "both sides" issue though. The billionaire class, who are causing all these problems for their personal profit, bought off both parties. People tried to fix that with an outsider (Donald Trump) but were fooled [politico.com]. They had a real outsider in the form of Bernie Sande

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            Trump as an "outsider" of the "billionaire class"....the mind boggles.
            Seriously, how blind can you be?

          • Except Trump was the Democrat's choice, as a "pied piper" candidate who would siphon votes away from "Little Marco" Rubio and "low energy" Jeb! Bush. Once he secured the nomination, the long knives would come out (extramarital affairs, "grab 'em by the pussy," multiple bankruptcies, etc.), thus ushering in a landslide victory for Hillary Clinton. However, a funny thing happened on the way to the White House...

          • Re:You need to check again (Score:4, Insightful)

            by DamnOregonian ( 963763 ) on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @01:43AM (#59944254)

            We haven't been a democracy in ages [bbc.com]

            That opinion piece is garbage.
            The U.S. may function as a de facto oligarchy, but that is only because we continue to vote one into power.
            Simplified: We democratically elect an oligarchy.

            • Simplified: We democratically elect an oligarchy.

              That turns out not to be the case. You are only allowed to vote for officially-approved candidates, who are pre-chosen by the oligarchy. (For a more detailed explanation, see http://fair-use.org/randolph-b... [fair-use.org] - especially the last few paragraphs).

              Aristotle pointed out that any political system that relies on elections is automatically an oligarchy (or maybe more correctly a plutocracy) because the rich will simply pay to have their candidates elected. Paying isn't limited to direct bribes, of course; it inc

      • "and when you say "Politics fucked everything over" you shift blame. You give an out to the people who failed us: Our leaders."

        The buck stops with the Citizens. They elected their leaders, they deserve every last fucking drop they get out of them. If your electorate keeps sending trash in, they only get trash out.

        Why is this hard to understand? When you create a government then elect it in... no voter walks innocent. And it's bullshit to say this logic gives leaders a pass. The very act of voting is th

        • and Democrats. Yeah, that's not a popular thing to say, but it's true. The electoral college picked Trump, and Gerrymandering gave the GOP the power they needed to win the Senate (and the House for the last 8 years, they only lost it because folks got scared the GOP would kill the ACA's pre-existing condition protections, jokes on them Trump's DOJ is going to do with without the GOP having to get their hands dirty).

          • Exactly... Gerrymandering is another proof that we are not a democracy. A democracy does not need districts. It only needs to be a popularity contest... that is the literal requirement for a Democracy. Something to be by popular/majority vote whether it be the politicians or the laws being voted in.

            • that is the literal requirement for a Democracy

              No, it is not.
              That's a requirement for one type of democracy: A direct one.
              The U.S. is a representative democracy, a form of indirect democracy (as are all democracies that exist)

              Please: educate your goddamn truth and quit spewing this falsehood all over every single topic that ever touches it. You're wrong, and you do damage to society in general in every person who may come to believe your incorrect definition of that word and concept.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by jd ( 1658 )

              It is a requirement of ONE form of democracy. It is not a requirement of democracy as a whole. Democracy as a whole covers a LOT of different systems, some of which have nothing to do with popularity or majorities.

              Gerrymandering is perfectly fine in a democracy, nothing in democracy requires a legitimate result.

          • How the heck do you gerrymander the "SENATE"??? It's 2 senators per state. Period.

          • Re:Our Citizens elected Hilary Clinton (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Trailer Trash ( 60756 ) on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @09:36AM (#59945376) Homepage

            If you think gerrymandering has any effect on the senate elections (state-wide) then you're an idiot.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      The WHO had a lot to say on word use and stigmatization rather than the spread of wuflu out of Communist China.

    • Re:Cocksucking Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Monday April 13, 2020 @10:03PM (#59943608)

      We humans act on shit we do not know all the fucking damn time, it's one of the very reasons we create procedures, plans, contingencies...
      [...]
      More than enough reports are coming out that we knew more than enough to catch Covid-19 long before we needed further information.

      You have to bear in mind that the extent of the pandemic (or even the fact that it would become a pandemic) was uncertain back in Jan/Feb. I've seen this over and over:

      • Challenger, where they were experiencing O-ring burn-throughs at a rate of about 1%. They knew it was a problem, but figured they had a handle on the uncertainty, and redundancy from multiple O-rings would save them. It didn't because some factors which cause one O-ring to fail, can cause other O-rings to fail. Like cold weather. Stripping redundancy out of the system.
      • After the earthquake in Kobe, where politicians and city managers were so afraid of making the wrong decision, that they made no decision. Resulting in delayed responses, which cost hundreds if not thousands of people their lives.
      • Before Katrina, when uncertainty of being hit by a hurricane allowed Louisiana politicians to justify delaying funding to repair the levee system for "one more year." They hadn't needed to maintain that contingency in 40 years. How much could it hurt to put it off for one more year?
      • At Fukushima, where uncertainty over how badly off the reactor was overheating led managers to fall back to the easiest choice - not flooding the reactor with seawater (which would've stopped any meltdown but also destroyed the reactor if there were no meltdown).

      Uncertainty tends to paralyze people, causing them to fall back on whatever is easiest for them to do. Which usually means erring on the side of not doing enough. Not raising the alarm, not spending enough to prepare, not sticking your neck out. It's why the military trains so extensively - so that in the heat of actual combat, soldiers don't just sit there doing nothing.

      I don't think it's really fair to blame politics. We all do it. And I don't think it's really fair to use what we know now after the uncertainty has collapsed, to blame people in the past for not making the correct decision when that uncertainty was still present. Someone posted a link to the slashdot poll, where nearly half of people didn't think this virus would be a big deal, and only one in six were extremely worried (FWIW I didn't see the poll, but I was one of those one in six). So no, we didn't know "more than enough to catch COVID-19 long before we needed further information."

      Did people not take the virus seriously enough? Yes. But I don't think that reaction was unwarranted. People react to uncertainties based on their past experience with similar situations. And the only similar situations in recent memory were SARS, MERS, Bird Flu, Swine Flu, which all fizzled out (arguably due to the tireless work of WHO and epidemiologists, who ironically were roundly criticized for overreacting to those, and overhyping the danger of COVID-19 early on because of their past success with those other outbreaks). The last time we had a pandemic approaching this scale was 1918, 3 or 4 generations removed from communal memory.

      I was disappointed more people didn't see the risk like I did back in January, but I can understand why they didn't think it would be a big deal. Keep a journal of life during this lockdown, take photos and videos, tell your kids and (in the future) grandkids about it. Keep the memory of 1918 and 2020 alive. So decades from now when it happens again, they're less likely to make the same mistake of under-reacting.

      • "You have to bear in mind that the extent of the pandemic (or even the fact that it would become a pandemic) was uncertain back in Jan/Feb. I've seen this over and over: "

        Okay, this is a lie. The fact that this virus was pandemic quality was clear in early January at least. There was such a retarded delay and political pandering at the CDC and WHO that news outlets started calling it a pandemic before them!

        How is it a bunch of "professionals" took this long to call it what it was when so many others inclu

      • I don't think many people expected it to be so wildly contagious.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • it's one of the very reasons we create procedures, plans, contingencies

      Procedures plans and contingencies are created and acted on based on what you know. That's why they are both planned, written down, and called a contingency in the first place. No one just guesses their way into a contingency. They get drawn up when information is known.

      People who make contingencies and act on them without basis and knowledge fall into two categories: Unemployed for wasting resources, and stars on the hit TV show Doomsday Preppers, also not necessarily mutually exclusive.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Congratulations!! You win the Intertubes Award for the Most Gratuitous Use of "fuck" in a Post.

  • Oh come on. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Vegan Cyclist ( 1650427 ) on Monday April 13, 2020 @06:58PM (#59942958) Homepage

    Why are you posting this WHO nonsense?

    The only person to listen to is Trump - after all, he had a really smart uncle and obviously knows more about all this than anyone else.

    The WHO doesn't know what they're talking about, as Trump knows and really deserves to be defunded. (And this has nothing to do with Trump being excluded from the awareness show Lady Gaga is planning for the WHO, and is not featuring Trump. Bigly.)

    • Re:Oh come on. (Score:5, Informative)

      by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @07:47AM (#59944984) Journal

      Why are you posting this WHO nonsense?

      The only person to listen to is Trump - after all, he had a really smart uncle and obviously knows more about all this than anyone else.

      The WHO doesn't know what they're talking about, as Trump knows and really deserves to be defunded. (And this has nothing to do with Trump being excluded from the awareness show Lady Gaga is planning for the WHO, and is not featuring Trump. Bigly.)

      WHO said in January that it can't spread by person to person contact. Reassuring to major Dems, who were, um, rather busy with something else in January.

      Your genius mayor also said that it was no big deal, and that we should all go enjoy Chinese New Year, and later still he said we should ignore it and just get out on the town.

      Lots of people have egg on their face. Your TDS is annoying at the best of times, but it's really effing clueless right now. Just STFU.

      Or actually, don't ... keep it up. Lose again. Enjoy.

  • Numbers aren't accurate (Score:4, Insightful)

    by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Monday April 13, 2020 @06:59PM (#59942964)

    Neither the number of confirmed cases nor the number of deaths are accurate. In the case of the former, we know from our experience thousands upon thousands of people are asymptomatic so never get tested, others have extremely mild symptoms and again, never get tested. Then there are those who are suspected of being infected, but due to the severe lack of test kits, are told to go home and self-quarantine. None of these people are recorded in the number of confirmed cases.

    For the latter, people who fall into one of the above categories die at home but since they were never tested, their death isn't recorded. In other cases, where the coroner suspects the person died from covid-19, the lack of test kits [cnn.com] prevents them from confirming their suspicions. In both cases, the person's death is not added to the total number of deaths from covid-19.

    One could easily add an additional 10% onto both figures to get closer to the truth.

    • Actually, rather than spitballing 10%, check the average number of dead people during this week of the year during the past five years and use that as a baseline. Estimate the number of COVID-19 deaths by subtracting the number of deaths this week from the baseline. That should give you an OK estimate of unreported COVID-19 deaths. Add these to both the number of reported COVID-19 deaths and infected cases count. Divide sum of deaths by the infected cases and you have a more accurate mortality estimate than

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Wycliffe ( 116160 )

      For the latter, people who fall into one of the above categories die at home but since they were never tested, their death isn't recorded. In other cases, where the coroner suspects the person died from covid-19, the lack of test kits [cnn.com] prevents them from confirming their suspicions. In both cases, the person's death is not added to the total number of deaths from covid-19.

      The opposite is also happening where people who die are being tested for covid-19 and even if it was a heart attack or in some cases even a car accident if they test positive for covid-19, it counts as a covid-19 death. This probably easily cancels out the few people who die without being tested.

      The big unknown is the denominator. If 50% of people are asymptomatic or too mild to be tested, that cuts the actual death rate in half.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by grasshoppa ( 657393 )

        Some of the numbers I'm hearing suggest that's 1:5; for everyone 1 person COVID confirmed, 4 folks are walking around with it ( or had it ). At least in the US.

        If that's true, that puts the actual mortality rate at around .8%, and that's with the inflated death stats ( car accident, COVID19 death? Count it! ).

        We'll never know the true numbers by their very nature ( asymptomatic, so why would you get tested? ).

        • As I said elsewhere.... Jesus Christ....look at the All Cause Mortality rate of Bergamo Italy last month...it was 4.5x to 6x normal. Just go look at it. If anything we are under-counting deaths by 100% to reduce panic. NYC reported weeks of 200% All Cause Mortality. You can't fudge numbers with cadavers....except by not testing them... What car deaths? NO ONE IS ****ING DRIVING. What Homicides? Crime is down 11% in San Diego because EVERYONE is home. What workplace injuries? Hardly anyone is working. It i

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Rockoon ( 1252108 )

      Then there are those who are suspected of being infected, but due to the severe lack of test kits, are told to go home and self-quarantine.

      You have forgotten the huge money motive to fudge the numbers.

      An uninsured person goes to the hospital right now, the hospital will get an additional $17K from the government (part of the federal stimulus) if they label it as COVID19 related, and the guidelines in the very same stimulus say they only need to "suspect" it being related to label it related.

      Follow the money. The federal guidelines right now are to amplify the numbers, and they are using money as the motivation to accomplish it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mark-t ( 151149 )

      For the latter, people who fall into one of the above categories die at home but since they were never tested, their death isn't recorded

      As less than 3 hours before I am typing this, I was hearing a segment on the local news which mentioned the people who are dying at home because they were sick with an undiagnosed condition and it is sometimes only being discovered afterwards that they had COVID19, I'm inclined to disagree with your assessment.

  • Who voted on Slashdot Feb 24 poll? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jmcbain ( 1233044 ) on Monday April 13, 2020 @07:17PM (#59943026)

    How did you vote in the February 24, 2020, Slashdot poll asking "How concerned are you about the spread of coronavirus? [slashdot.org]"? Were you part of the 41% who voted "Not that concerned" or "Not concerned one bit"?

    And these were real doozies:

    AxisOfPleasure: I'm a fat pampered westerner who's had innoculations since they were a month old. I'm not saying I won't catch it, but I'm realtively healthy, eat a good diet and so if I get it I'll end up in bed for a week like normal flu, then go back to work. Yes it's killing people but this is mostly the media blowing this out of all proportion. Normal flu kills people every year, calm the f**k down, wash your hands and cover your mouth when you yawn, cough or sneeze.

    CoolDiscoRex: But the last time I read about it, it didn’t seem appreciably worse than the common flu. I think the media just can’t contain itself and of course the government isn’t going to pass it up since scared citizens are controllable citizens. Either way, I quit my job about a month ago, so unless you can catch the virus by eating frozen pizza, playing video games, and obsessively whacking off to Internet porn, I don’t have anything to worry about.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by iggymanz ( 596061 )

      AxisOfPleasure likely will be fine though, how is that a "doozy" especially when that's CDC main talking point about washing hands and cover mouth?

        just think if people got this excited about cigarettes and their 480K body count per year in the USA alone. 41K of those are second hand smoke

      • especially when that's CDC main talking point about washing hands and cover mouth?

        Not sure how that is related to the severity of a virus that is spread through body fluid droplets and surfaces. I mean that advice would be the same for the common cold as it is for the Spanish flu.

        just think if people got this excited about cigarettes and their 480K body count per year in the USA alone.

        There are whole industries along with world wide campaigns and regulations deployed in an effort to reduce that body count, even the companies causing the problem itself are in the industry of providing alternatives to smoking (e-cigarettes), so I'm not sure why you think no one is excited about this. Could it b

    • 24 Feb? Even TODAY, there are post [slashdot.org] calling to end the lockdown.

      The US general public are still in confusion whether this pandemic is serious or not. It is no better today compared to two months ago.

  • Upside down brain (Score:4, Funny)

    by AndyKron ( 937105 ) on Monday April 13, 2020 @07:37PM (#59943100)
    Like I've been saying: The truth is the opposite whatever Trump says.
  • The swine flu never disappeared. The swine flu vaccine became part of the regular flu shot for each year. You did get your flu shot recently?

  • Covid-19 killed my mother in law last week. She was 79 but in great health. Never smoked. No diabetes, no cancer. She could bicycle for 20 miles with no problem. Within three days of symptom onset, she had to go to the hospital, then on oxygen, then on a ventilator, then dead. Seven days from fine too dead.

    • I am sorry about your mother in law. It shows that these are real people not just numbers. And it is not just a small amount of folks dying.

      The daily death rate in places like New York city, New Jersey, and Louisiana is something like 2 to 4 times higher than normal. Freezer trucks added to the normal morgue capacity are not enough to store all the dead. This is not just a normal flue. There are headlines like 'CORONAVIRUS BECOMES NUMBER ONE CAUSE OF DEATH PER DAY IN U.S., SURPASSING HEART DISEAS

    • Re:Covid-19 Killed my Mother-in-Law (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Camel Pilot ( 78781 ) on Monday April 13, 2020 @09:29PM (#59943502) Homepage Journal

      Sorry for your loss.

      Until recently my MIL was telling my wife that COVID-19 is no worse than the flu - her source? Faux News and her hero Trump which she watches all the time. My wife was really scared that she was going to catch it because of her cavalier attitude.

  • Man, judging by my facebook feed, the 'everyday' person thinks the shutdown is an overreaction, the virus is nothing to worry about, and it's some sort of government agenda / conspiracy. People are now so jaded against scientists, the politicians and the media that many will have to die from COVID before they can accept any of it. It's a sad state of affairs. I'm in Missouri - your experience will hopefully vary from mine.

  • That's why it was posted as clickbait.

  • Why we're looking for antibodies (when some people will have immune systems incapable of detecting the virus, not just those with immune deficiency disorders) or using very slow (hours or days), unreliable chemical tests that will identify that you've COVID-19 but not which of the 11 variants.

    When microarrays were first developed, identifying viruses was one of the first things they were used for. The promise was that you could take them to a third world nation, with no supplies to hand, test an entire vill

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