Since December 31, 2019, the world has been inundated with a constant stream of information talking about the coronavirus a.k.a. COVID-19. Roughly 3 months in, there is still not an abundance of information about this new coronavirus strain, how it spreads, and how to contain it. There are however a few things that are certain. COVID-19 is not the flu. This is a very important fact that shouldn't be overlooked or taken lightly. Multiple tweets continue to surface comparing COVID-19 and influenza by either citing their lack of concern or by pointing out that more people die every year from influenza than have died thus far from COVID-19; there have been roughly 20,000 deaths in the United States so far this season. It is true that common cold and COVID-19 are both members of a group of viruses known as coronavirus, as is SARS and MERS, but influenza is not the same. While people should absolutely not panic, they should not compare the two viruses. Let's look at some numbers.

World Health Organization (WHO) Director, General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that COVID-19 is deadlier than the flu that comes around every year. Yes, more people die from the flu but more people get the flu. Look at the mortality percentages. The flu kills far less than 1% of people. COVID-19 kills about 3-4%. The United States Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates between 9 to 45 million flu cases a year in the US alone. Of those cases, between 12 to 61,000 people die. Even by using the highest estimated number of deaths and the lowest estimated number of cases that's far less than 1%.

"CDC estimates that influenza has resulted in between 9 million – 45 million illnesses, between 140,000 – 810,000 hospitalizations and between 12,000 – 61,000 deaths annually since 2010." - cdc.gov Disease Burden of Influenza

With COVID-19 we have far fewer cases presently. At the time of this writing and according to the figures on worldometers.com, there have been 119,243 cases of this strain of the coronavirus. Of those cases, there have been 4,300 deaths. That's a 3.6% death rate. If we were to scale that up to the comparable number of influenza cases in the United States, even if the lower estimated number of 9 million cases were infected, that would be 324,000 deaths. That's a big difference.

John Hopkins University and the WHO estimate there are 1 billion flu cases worldwide per year.

"Influenza is a serious global health threat that impacts all countries: every year, there are an estimated 1 billion cases, 3-5 million severe cases, and 290,000 - 650,000 influenza-related respiratory deaths worldwide. In this interconnected world, the next influenza pandemic is a matter of when not if, and a severe pandemic is believed by many experts to be potentially the most devastating global health event with far reaching consequences." World Health Organization Global Influenza Strategy 2019-2030

Were COVID-19 to get further out of control and infect the same number globally as influenza, then the death toll would be 30-40 million at the current 3-4% mortality. This is not the seasonal flu that we are all used to going around. Thinking it is will have people going about their business as usual without taking precautions which will further increase the spread.

"WHO officials said they don’t know how COVID-19 behaves, saying it’s not like influenza. They added that while much is known about the seasonal flu, such as how it’s transmitted and what treatments work to suppress the disease, that same information is still in question when it comes to the coronavirus." cnbc.com WHO says coronavirus death rate is 3.4% globally, higher than previously thought

I'm sure by now in this age of quick trends and social media tempered attention spans there are a large number of people who are simply tired of seeing this on the news, in their timelines, and just being talked about. We are used to something big happening that lasts for a few weeks then goes away, leaving us to carry on with things as normal and allowing us to move on to the next day. Surely the barrage of information constantly being thrown at us from various sources has left many with coronavirus fatigue; much like campaign politics leading up to the presidential election. We must remember though that we are barely 3 months into dealing with a new virus for which even medical experts don't know a lot about nor have a vaccine for.

In an interview on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, infectious disease expert Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH, said this:

"I worry...I keep telling people we're handling this like it's a corona blizzard, you know two or three days and it's back to normal. This is a corona virus winter. And we are going to have the next three months or more, six months or more that are going to be like this..." - Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH

This is potentially a long haul situation. The seriousness of that should not be understated. In time and with more research and information, the global medical community will probably get a better handle on dealing with and treating COVID-19.

With that in mind, the very fact that the novel coronavirus is different from and doesn't behave like influenza leads Dr. Mike Ryan, Executive Director of WHO’s Health Emergencies program, to believe there is hope that the virus can be contained.

“Here we have a disease for which we have no vaccine, no treatment, we don’t fully understand transmission, we don’t fully understand case mortality, but what we have been genuinely heartened by is that unlike influenza, where countries have fought back, where they’ve put in place strong measures, we’ve remarkably seen that the virus is suppressed,” Ryan said." - cnbc.com WHO says coronavirus death rate is 3.4% globally, higher than previously thought

COVID-19 and influenza are not the same. The novel coronavirus is something different.

In the meantime, the best practices for protecting yourself from COVID-19 have been repeated ad nausea but they are worth repeating again.

Wash your hands regularly with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. (Soap and water is preferable to sanitizer but use sanitizer soap and water are not available)

Maintain a distance of at least 3 feet between yourself and anyone may be coughing or sneezing

Don't touch your face; particularly your eyes, nose, or mouth

Cough or sneeze into your elbow

Contact medical professionals if you have a fever, cough, and difficulty breathing

If you're experiencing these symptoms, don't go into the public

You can stay up-to-date with current information about COVID-19 by visiting the WHO and the CDC.

World Health Organization (WHO): https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019

USA Center for Disease Control (CDC): https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html

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Crossposted from IndiePundit.com http://www.indiepundit.com/covid-19-is-not-the-flu-stop-saying-that-it-is/

Additional:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

https://www.who.int/influenza/Global_Influenza_Strategy_2019_2030_Summary_English.pdf

https://news.yahoo.com/least-44-dead-drinking-toxic-155009184.html

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-photos-why-you-should-wash-hands-with-soap-water-2020-3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZFhjMQrVts

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/timeline-china-coronavirus-spread-200126061554884.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/03/who-says-coronavirus-death-rate-is-3point4percent-globally-higher-than-previously-thought.html

https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/comparing-coronavirus-flu/E4NZVS6BO5AABPCVVWDS222H7I/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus

https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1234870438926278659

https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/486668-flu-has-killed-20000-americans-so-far-this