FarbigeWelt wrote: Wed Mar 11, 2020 1:02 am
Maybe influenza kills more people but that is not the point, corona does not replace it adds deaths.
Well said!
Moreover, comparison with flu is partly misleading. Spanish flu happened 100 years ago: medical knowledge, health standards and national health system all over the world were totally different.
Today flu kills a lot of people also because an enormous quantity of people get it, but its percent mortality is much smaller than Covid-19, according to present knowledge.
According to the news we receive every day, Covid-19 evolves in a high number of cases (when compared to other illnesses) into severe pneumonia, with patients needing long-time hospital care for assisted breathing.
The amount of intensive care places available in hospitals for such patients is based on the average need for such treatments, and now this new disease is stretching the system because of the high number of new patients.
Lombardy, the Italian region with Milano and the highest number of Covid-19 cases, has begun sending patients to hospitals in nearby regions, to free up space for new arrivals, while in the meantime new intensive care places are being set up.
That's why, at this time when the number of cases is still rising steadily, the greatest fear for authorities is the risk of collapse for hospitals, hence the continuous stress on containment measures (apart from the obvious aim of not felling ill of a potentially severe illness).