An epidemiologist's word on Covid 19
I hate that this has crept into our forum and I do think it's admirable that we haven't had, or at least I haven't seen, hysterical conversation about this like the rest of the world seems to be having. Still it came up in the "Any hockey fans out there?" thread that the NHL has postponed the remaining 19-20 season until further notice. Not at all ironically I sent a text to a friend of mine who is an infectious disease doctor This morning to ask his opinion. What follows is our text conversation. I have uncertainty as to whether he would speak publicly the same way he would to me privately. Even if he would I don't believe it would be fair to speak on his behalf without his permission. Because of this I'll just refer to him as B.
Me: Hey B, hope you're well. It seemed like something you would know. So has the whole world gone crazy or is it just me because this whole covid 19 craze all seems like irrational hysteria? I mean, I know it's early on but if you compare the numbers to influenza It seems a little out of phase and no one seems to flip out about influenza. Maybe they should more than they do.I don't know unless there's something that the public is not being told it just seems a little over the top.
B:I hear that a lot from relatively young healthy people like yourself. Don't forget that certain groups have a 15-20% mortality.
At least 10 times greater than influenza death rate and much more infectious than influenza. Population has no immunity.
May be 30 x influenza.
35K death from influenza
Me:Yeah I get that and I'm not trying to dismiss it. But can't the same be said for influenza? Every single year there are hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide from influenza and we know it's a danger but we go about our lives. It just seems like the world has really need jerk to this.
B:Translates to 350K -400K deaths at least in USA.
Health system in Europe already overwhelmed.
Me:Okay well that adds some perspective. Responded before your other texts came in. I'm certainly not dismissing anything. I just want to try to keep it in perspective. Sometimes the media blows things out of proportion. Washing hands a lot, trying not to have too much contact with others physically, using hand sanitizer and keeping my hands out of my face
B:We have lived so long without plagues and
Me:Well also I'm not as young or as healthy as all of that. I'm nearing 60 plus I'm down a kidney and stand a certain amount of risk of losing the other one from too many nsaids trying to fight off fever. That's partially why I asked. I appreciate your input as always B
B:Keep care Paul
Me:Thanks B. You too! I worry about you working with these kinds of things. Stay safe.
Of course this was a text conversation so I'm sure you get the disjointedness of it. I think you can tell by my questions and responses that I am not an alarmist and I'm certainly not trying to scare anyone but my friend is a highly respected physician in his field. I personally am going to go about my life and try to practice good hygiene and stay healthy as much as possible. Still pandemic is not something that any of us should take lightly. I am not trying to stir the pot or cause any alarm and I know from previous discussions that there are going to be a lot of opinions about this and many are not going to agree. This being the case I'm stepping out of this conversation as of now. I just figured it was worth sharing what he told me.