Why isn't there a shortage of hospital resources during a typical flu season?

The media is thriving. They have increased viewership and increased hiring and hours. They love it and they really don't understand that millions of middle class Americans are out of work.

Flu mutates but is still treatable with available medicine and the year flu vaccine. The percentage of the hospitalized patients is lower and they get better quickly.

The SARS-COV2 is a novel virus, there is nothing available that can treat it, it entirely depends on the immune system to fight it off, people who are immune compromised / get a higher viral load goes on ventilator to buy time for themselves to heal. Most won't make it.

run more not less wrote:

The media is thriving. They have increased viewership and increased hiring and hours. They love it and they really don't understand that millions of middle class Americans are out of work.

They don't want this to slow down or end as it will take away from the populous addiction to coverage and news updates of the pandemic.

Help me to understand wrote:

Fugu-

Thanks for sharing some information on this situation. I have read that many teenagers don't have an enzyme that is necessary and needed for the Corvid 19 virus to infect them, is that true?

Second question- if two or three teenage runners in an area that has few to zero positive Corona tests would go out for a run together and stay six feet apart for the majority of the run, and don't touch each other while running or after finishing the run, and don't touch anything while running, and don't touch others while running, how might they become infected?

How long can the virus live on clothing and does cold impact it (thinking below freezing) ?

Bumped again since no response from Fugi. Could anyone else answer my questions?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

Haven’t read the thread so this is probably already answered, but;

1) covid is worse than the flu

2) the flu and other diseases are still going on. This is ON TOP OF everything else. Hospitals already run at like 2/3 capacity or more.

What is so hard about reading the thread before you post?

ThatAverageRunner wrote:

Haven’t read the thread so this is probably already answered, but;

1) covid is worse than the flu

To everyone?

2) the flu and other diseases are still going on. This is ON TOP OF everything else. Hospitals already run at like 2/3 capacity or more.

How many hospitals run at that capacity and how do they control that? Are the average hospitals busier or less busy currently, than one month ago?

My responses to you are bolded and italicized above.

The people with flue are spread out through the entire year and covid is all at once and obviously more intense

The average hospital is less busy now. I estimate 90% are less busy, 5% are equally busy, and 5% are over capacity.

Donald, would you stop posting here!!! Ask Tony.

For a quick summary, though:

1) most people with flu do not need hospitalization

2) very few people with the flu need ventilators

3) medical staff already had a flu shot.

4) up to 20% of people getting coronavirus need medical attention

5) flu season is normally spread over a longer time period.

6) flu is not as contagious as coronavirus

It's possible that, to some extend, we are overblowing the dangers of coronavirus. It's possible more people are getting it with very mild symptoms, but we just don't know yet. The worse case models are far, far worse that the flu. Do you want to take the risk? I don't.

uh asking for a friend wrote:

The people with flue are spread out through the entire year and covid is all at once and obviously more intense

Medical mistakes are estimated to be the cause of 250,000 to 400,000 deaths a year in America.

Where is the hype over this?

GOML wrote:

Because. This. Isn’t. Just. A. Bad. Flu.

It’s much worse.

Repeat that as necessary until it sinks in.

Signed,

A frustrated physician

People are usually trying to downplay it when they liken it to a bad flu (which is stupid anyway because the 1918 flu killed tens of millions--bad flu can be worse than we all hope this is) and I realize that it's a coronavirus not an influenza virus so it isn't technically a flu but I think like a lot of people I don't really understand why it's hitting the population so differently. Flu puts a lot of people in the hospital every year but it isn't all the same week. Why is that happening with covid19? Can you explain?

Giles Corey wrote:

uh asking for a friend wrote:

The people with flue are spread out through the entire year and covid is all at once and obviously more intense

Medical mistakes are estimated to be the cause of 250,000 to 400,000 deaths a year in America.

Where is the hype over this?

No. The study you are referencing found that amongst patients who died in the hospital, 250,000-400,000 had a medical mistake during the course of their hospitalization. Very different.

Because people who die from influenza are not concentrated in hot spots like NYC and don't all fall sick and die within weeks of each other as with the coronavirus. It's the high concentration of coronavirus patients that is overwhelming the health services in those hotspots. In non-hotspots health services is coping and isn't overwhelmed with patients.

3hr-marathoner wrote:

GOML wrote:

Because. This. Isn’t. Just. A. Bad. Flu.

It’s much worse.

Repeat that as necessary until it sinks in.

Signed,

A frustrated physician

People are usually trying to downplay it when they liken it to a bad flu (which is stupid anyway because the 1918 flu killed tens of millions--bad flu can be worse than we all hope this is) and I realize that it's a coronavirus not an influenza virus so it isn't technically a flu but I think like a lot of people I don't really understand why it's hitting the population so differently. Flu puts a lot of people in the hospital every year but it isn't all the same week. Why is that happening with covid19? Can you explain?

Because no one is immune to coronavirus (it is a new virus, there is no vaccine, etc). Partly because of this and partly because of the asymptomatic period in which people can spread it the average person spreads it to about 2.5-3 others compared to about 1.5 for the flu. Over a few iterations of spreading, this adds up to many more people getting sick in a shorter period of time. Additionally, it appears as though a higher proportion of coronavirus patients need to be hospitalized - up to about 20% vs about 1% for the flu. The combination of these two factors leads to far far more potential hospitalizations in a short period of time for coronavirus.

Daah!

Because Corvid-19 is not the flu.

A lot of younger people get really sick too and a lot more hospitalization is needed than for the flu.

Why don’t all you budding infectious disease epidemiologists take a little trip down to Elmhurst or Moint Sinai Hospitals in NYC, talk to the ICU and ER, or what’s left of them, and then come back to your message board to explain how this isn’t more than your run of the mill influenza virus.

Giles Corey wrote:

Medical mistakes are estimated to be the cause of 250,000 to 400,000 deaths a year in America.

Where is the hype over this?

Giles, (and Wiggins, Bart et al), surely you guys cannot be this dumb? Surely? Is your partisanship so strong that you guys just say the opposite of everything that's real?

Medical mistakes, car accidents etc, they are all guess what 'mistakes' that people make, like you make in your job...and surgeons have become better, robotic surgery, surgery on brain while awake (to prevent mistakes) etc etc, cars have moved from tin coffins to all sorts of safety aspects.

And besides all that, the crunch is that when you have one car accident....it doesn't infect your whole city, wow, who would have thought that?

Now back to flu vs Covid19.

If you went to the office with either, hugged workmates, kissed some on cheek, shook hands, touched toilet door handles...how long would it be before the entire office is down with either, and how many in hospital?

We do it with flu all the time, most of people don't know they have it, and most don't get it and/or don't know.

If you still think a novel corona virus, that specifically attaches to ACE2 in lungs, creating all sorts of respiratory issues either from the virus itself or the excess of angiotensin 1 , is the same as flu, then no rationale can convince you guys

I am Sam wrote:

Is your partisanship so strong that you guys just say the opposite of everything that's real?

...and just a note on this. In Australia the opposition party is in 100% support of govt initiatives, the national cabinet set up for this comprises representation from all parties and states.

Every person, bar some village idiots, are singing from the same hymn sheet.

Covid19 does not discriminate