Some of the stuff being posted on here is a bit naive. Comparisons to the common flu and how many people it kills yearly aren’t rationale . Common flu kills way more to date - yes . So do car accidents . They don’t do so by putting large percentages of infected into hospitals with pneumonia, spreading quickly due to being highly contagious, not being noticeable because of long incubation periods often without symptoms, and overwhelming health systems .
Short post from a friend in friend of a friend in Asia :
“Aussie mates, and truthfully mates anywhere. A lot of people are still pushing this idea of coronavirus either being not that serious, or that 'it's just going to infect everyone, there's nothing we can do'. Both of these statements are very wrong.
We've been dealing with it for months now in Asia, and there is overwhelming evidence communities that take hygiene measures, social distancing and isolations very seriously are having a completely different experience with the disease. The virus is also similar to the Spanish flu of 1918 and there are case studies which establish that early adoption of these measures had a huge impact on the path of the disease city by city. This is how we lower the rate of infection and cause the disease to die out.
Case in point, Taiwan was one of the earliest countries to be hit, and yet it's had only 47 cases, 17 of which have recovered. Hong Kong's had 121 of which 59 have recovered and Singapore's had 166 of which 73 have recovered.
The disease may die out within 12 months, but what happens between now and then is everything that matters. Forget about the death rate, it's the 20% of cases that need serious hospitalisation which will impact everyone who needs medical care in the next 12 months. Cancer patients can't get help in certain cities.
There's a hospital in Italy where 600 people with pneumonia turned up and they had no where to put them. All of the medical staff were tied up dealing with the existing Covid-19 patients. There are 16 million people there in lockdown and Italy's economy may never recover from this year.
Wash your hands like you're about to perform surgery as often as you can. Stay away from publicly touched surfaces and physically distance yourself from people (think 1 metre, and don't shake hands). Use disinfectant on surfaces which are touched in your house, and avoid places where people are in close contact. Even if you don't think you'll get sick, do it so that everyone around you is faced with a new standard that pressures them to do the same.
Ignore the current counts being published by the WHO. It is already in the community, we are not testing broadly enough. And this thing is vastly more contagious than the common cold. A live show in Osaka with 100 people had 40 walk out infected.
It's an insane thing to live through but you can absolutely make a difference for your community by taking it seriously - now - and in doing so get the people around you to as well.”
Social distancing is responsible if only because it could slow the spread and buy valuable time for us to prepare our health systems, add respirators, stockpile medical supplies, and research vaccines.
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