Author: Paul

I posted this message in response to a friend who is among the more vulnerable to coronavirus, and modified it slightly to post it on my own Facebook page:

I’ve been hearing some try to minimize the precautions we’ve seen thus far against the coronavirus. Some have even ridiculed it all.

I would ask you to consider that some of these precautions are not so YOU won’t get the coronavirus, which you figure you’ll handle just fine. It’s so you don’t act as a vector for COVID-19 and SPREAD it to someone who is more vulnerable than you. Keep in mind that the best information we have now says YOU ARE CONTAGIOUS before you start showing symptoms YOURSELF.

Sorry for your inconvenience, but this is more than just “all about you.”

And, by the way — why weren’t we all washing our hands and employing reasonable social practices minimizing the spread of things like this — AND THE FLU, which has been killing tens of thousands EVERY YEAR — ALL ALONG?!?

Some of the news coverage has been shallow and sensationalist. But if you listen to it, some fairly shocking facts emerge. You are several more time more likely to die of coronavirus than the flu if you’re over 60, especially if you have “compicating medical conditions.” Like heart disease. Or respiratory disease. Or diabetes. Or high blood pressure. A LOT of people over 60 have high blood pressure.

And I just learned something new yesterday. The pneumonia that older people are getting as a complication of coronavirus? It’s not bacterial pneumonia, as initially thought. It’s ARDS – acute respiratory disease syndrome. The Wikipedia pages states that OF THOSE WHO SURVIVE (my emphasis), a decreased quality of life is relatively common.

And ARDS is what killed so many, so quickly, during the Spanish flu of 1918. The mortality rate of ARDS is 36-52%.

This is NOT the flu. It’s both more communicable and several times more deadly. It’s worth taking it seriously.