New England Journal of Medicine: Coronavirus May Be No Worse than Flu

Stethoscope (Karen Bleier / Getty)

An editorial published Friday in the New England Journal of Medicine speculated that the coronavirus currently causing panic in world markets could turn out no worse than “a severe seasonal influenza” in terms of mortality.

Citing an analysis of the available data from the outbreak in China, the authors note that there have been zero cases among children younger than 15; and that the fatality rate is 2% at most, and could be “considerably less than 1%.”

Those who have died have been elderly or were already suffering from another illness — as with ordinary flu. The underlying data suggest that the symptoms varies, and fewer than one in six of the cases reported were “severe.”

The authors note that coronavirus looks to be much less severe than other recent outbreaks of respiratory illnesses:

[T]he overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.

The vast majority of patients recover, and among those who are hospitalized, the median stay thus far is 12 days.

Coronavirus, they note, does spread easily, and the average infected person has infected two other people. That means the U.S. should expect the illness to gain a “foothold.” But they note travel restrictions on China (imposed by President Donald Trump over the objections of some critics) “may have helped slow the spread of the virus.”

Read more at www.breitbart.com


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Comments (7)

  • Avatar

    Andy Rowlands

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    This is interesting, when some are claiming a 7% mortality rate.

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    • Avatar

      4TimesAYear

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      In China where it started – but people were deliberately spreading it. Look up the videos of what people do in Chinese elevators.

      Reply

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    4TimesAYear

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    It was getting some help in spreading in China. People spitting on elevator buttons. I can see that happening here, too. Certain people want to spread chaos and fear. What better way than to spit on everything we touch – doorknobs, pens in banks, doorbells, things for sale in stores.

    Reply

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    Jimmie P Montgomery

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    Watch the Laowhy86 video “China Doesn’t Have This Under Control” Pay close attention to how the hosts talk about what they learned after years of living in China. They show where people are barricaded into their homes by the government. There is a video clip of the new “built in 10 days” hospital with an open floor plan (think Diamond Princess) and how it is flooding in the rain. They tell of the widespread attitude in China of rule breaking as just a part of life there. Matthew (host of Laowhy86) and his co-host Winston talk about the racism of the Chinese Communist Party, CCP and how it affected them.

    Matthew went to China to teach English or as the Chinese refer to him a “talking white monkey”. Winston went to China back in 2005 to teach modern medical protocols to hospital doctors. Yes, apparently the medical schools in China didn’t know to teach proper medical processes in a hospital, things like isolation of diseases, just non-matters of no importance, I’m saying with sarcasm dripping off every word.

    Look up what happened to Matthew’s wife when she gave birth to their first child and how for their second child he brought his wife to the United States so she wouldn’t have to go through that again. He paid a lot of extra money for a private room and well that didn’t happen and she was forced to give birth in a room with other women giving birth in less than sanitary conditions. Said it was cheaper to come to America to have their second child if I remember correctly.

    When the CCP came down hard on foreigners and he couldn’t take public transportation unless he had his wife with him, he decided it was time to leave China. If you go on YouTube their video is demonetized as YouTube seems to be a no poor speech about China gatekeeper. Now onto more terrible things.

    OK at the 46 minute to 49 minute part of their video they talk about the fact that the CCP has brought in portable crematories with as they put it, “tons per day capacity”. They make the cogent point of “why do they need portable crematories if there are only 2,000 deaths?” In an earlier point they talk about how if the spread outside of China is any indicator then the problem is a lot worse in China than they are letting on.

    The video is about an hour long and well worth the time it takes to listen too. By the way you can check and see that Laowhy86 has been doing this for a lot longer than the 3 years I’ve listened to him. Their’s is no conspiracy website. Matthew is called C-milk on his show. Winston is also called Serpentza and ADVChina are the names his videos are under. I try to get people here in the US of A to pay attention beyond the lies of the CCP our media puts out with no caveats about the CCP and why we should not believe anything they say.

    Matthew and Winston go into pretty good detail on the CCP and it’s history. They explain how China even under its Dynasties was always a strong man dictator run country. Again, watch the video, it is an eye opener and also rather alarming if the WHO investigation video is accurate then the Chinese people have good reasons to stay away from hospitals and quarantine camps in gyms or other public buildings. Never-mind that they don’t have enough medicine, word is they don’t have enough food to feed their patients in some areas.
    Pray for the Chinese people.

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    CK Wright

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    A mortality rate of 2% for Covid-19 is 20 times that of the 0.1% suggested for flu. Moreover some reports seem to indicate that as many as 10% of Covid-19 cases are sufficiently serious to demand hospital treatment.
    This surely indicates that a Covid-19 pandemic would put massive strain on resources and cause many more deaths than the normal annual round of flu!

    Reply

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    JDHuffman

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    The claim is that Coronaviris is not a “normal” flu. That’s likely true because there is no such thing as a “normal” flu. Typically each season brings a new variant.

    For this U.S. flu season, CDC is reporting over 32 million “normal” flu cases, with over 18,000 deaths.

    It’s kinda hard to believe that Coronavirus can compete, especially as warmer weather brings an end to flu season.

    https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm

    Reply

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    T. C. Clark

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    I searched World Death Rates and found a site with statistics….China has over 4000 deaths every day…..the world has over 9 million deaths per year. China has over 1/2 its deaths from strokes, heart disease and lung disease. The Chinese people are honourable people and would not deliberately spread a virus.

    Reply

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