strad wrote: ↑12 Mar 2020, 00:32
With all this talk of mortality people lose sight of the almost 50,000 that walked away cured.
It is not a death sentence. The people that need to worry are those very elderly in poor health to begin with.
BTW the WHO says it's less contagious than the measles.
Such ignorant attitudes make me angry. I don't even know why you mention measles when talking about contagiousness. It makes zero sense.
What's happening in Italy right now is scary. Hundreds of people die because the medical system just can't stand it. The problem is that it's flu season as well and in such time periods intensive care units are most busy throughout the year anyway. If you add another epidemic like the current coronavirus, the system just collapses.
Doctors in Italy watch how patients die. Also patients who under normal circumstances would have a big chance to survive. They need to make a choose from the patients who need to get artificial ventilation. Others are left to die. 196 deaths in Italy in just one day, today. That's catastrophic.
The problem is that some people still don't take it seriously. Elderly people are in danger, of course, but this absolutely does not mean that others can relax. To the contrary, young people need to worry even more. With just mild symptoms they might not even know they are infected and will spread it.
The growth of cases has been very steep in Italy, due to lack of early measurements. Other countries need to learn from that and don't make the same mistakes. For this to happen, all people should feel a responsibility instead of relaxing just because they are not in the group to worry. We all have old people around us, parents, grandparents etc. and we surely don't want them to get sick. If we, as young people, don't contribute to the slowing down of the spread, in a few weeks we could be one of the people crying in the hospital halls because one of our loved ones can't get a bed in the intensive care unit.