Way more than 20 have died from COVID-19, and China misrepresented both the prevalence and mortality rate associated with the disease. Something with a 3.4+% mortality rate is hardly comparable to the flu, especially for something so contagious. This disease is worse than SARS and MERS because it has a good balance between mortality rate and infectiousity. If the mortality rate is too high, the virus can quickly burn out before it can spread to new hosts.Obi-Wan Nihilo wrote:Which was an incredibly smart thing to do. Granted, the hype around COVID-19 is completely overblown, but anything to blunt it is a Good Thing.Hashi Lebwohl wrote:hrm....when the first hints of coronavirus were hitting the media here, Trump ordered travel restrictions from China, which resulted in him being called "xenophobic" and "racist" by the New York Times.
And by "overblown", I mean that 40,000 people have died from the flu in the last 6 months, and less than 20 have died from COVID-19. This is not a big deal.
You should all be pretty worried about it, especially if you're elderly.
For comparison, seasonal flu mortality rate is about 0.1%. COVID-19 is about 3.4%. That is 34 times that of flu. Mortality rates of COVID-19 are far higher in elderly patients.