Conspiracy Theory -what is so different between Flu & Covid 19?

To be fair there are a couple of people on here that I could believe would write that.

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I have read the posts from you & Dan but cannot find in them any explanation about the virus. For example, at what point in the infection cycle is the viral load at its highest? How long does it take seroconversion to start? Why have studies of the virus dynamics and host response (essential for formulating strategies for antiviral treatment, vaccination, and epidemiological control) not yet been done?
So come on, Dan, answer please.

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Sorry Mark your question was about why the Coronavirus was being treated differently from the flu that killed people every year as to date the number of people it had killed was so small.
That has been answered. I suggest you a Google specific questions about the virus, there’s a lot of easy to understand information out there if you are actually interested.

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As Dan says, if you want to know that kind of info you’ll find the answers on google if anyone has those answers at present. It takes time to carry out experiments and analyse the results and write the papers etc.

Your original question, which you reiterated several times, was

and the answer to that has nothing to do with your last batch of questions.

It’s a new virus, we don’t know much about it, we have no vaccine, but we know what consequences it wrought in China. That’s why these measures were put in place. Nothing to do with specific details of the cycle, which AFAIK there is no absolute consensus on at present.

No, Dan, that was not my question. I asked ā€œI wonder, therefore, why covid 19 is considered to be so much more serious than flu despite the death rate being tiny in comparison?ā€ I did not ask why it was being treated ā€œdifferentlyā€. That is a big difference. No wonder you have believed that the question has been answered.

Are you trolling ?

Sorry Mark you will have to do better than that. You asked why new measures had been introduced this year. Treated differently. You really have a problem.
For your information. It’s a new virus, it is NOT flu n

I really think he is. That or he’s not man enough to admit he’s clueless.

What exactly are you trying to prove Dan ?

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I really think this thread should be closed we have got into some sort of Gordian knot and are just running in circles but

IT IS NOT FLU

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Yes, it’s not flu but for some this tread is contagious, & high blood pressure may be fatal.

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To be fair, it appears that the WHO almost certainly had a lack of urgency when promoting research and vaccine development into human coronavirus infections, as despite the warnings from 2003/2004 when SARS-Cov came about, and then MERS, it appears that little was done to promote the agenda on an international basis. Possibly, this may have been as a result of political pressure, or just political indifference, as those previous outbreaks were largely confined to smaller areas of the globe. In the meantime, one Chinese researcher has been at pains to attempt to track down and identify various strains of Cov in bats that might have served as reservoirs for future outbreaks, but without the funding, and working in a country with a certain degree of state control in public health, it was according to her own accounts an immensely difficult task.

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Hello All,
Just sticking my pence worth in…and this is mostly ā€˜thinking out loud’ type of commentary.
I am a registrar of births, deaths and marriages. Every winter we see a rise in the amount of elderly and infirm people dying as a result of flu and even the common cold. Neither of these ā€˜causes’ appears on the Medical Certificate of Death, issued by the attending doctor. Normally the cause will be written as pneumonia or even sepsis as a result of lung infection/pneumonia. Or even ā€˜frailty of old age’ in people over 80, with no other cause noted.

Many of the deceased will already have been frail, and or suffering other underlying health conditions. When they become ill with pneumonia they are mostly transferred to hospital. I’ve yet to hear a family tell me that their 94 year old was ā€˜kept going’ or even transferred to ICU. Ditto someone suffering from any other terminal disease. The fact is, people die, and as a society we have to accept that at 80 you have already ā€˜outlived’ the expected biological capacity of your body. So it seems odd to me and my colleagues why people who would very likely have passed away in the next few months anyway, are now being counted in the Covid19 statistics. The government itself has stated that a figure between half to two thirds of deaths from Covid19 are so far amongst people who were already at end of life stage.

Where Covid19 is perhaps different from other viral illnesses is it’s ability to kill younger people. I am talking under 80 here. Yet again though, day in day out, I register deaths of people who have passed away in middle age from completely avoidable and curable diseases. Nationwide, we are talking tens of thousands every single year. These are things like heart disease, smoking related diseases, obesity related diseases, alcohol related diseases. The biggest killer of middle aged men is heart disease…yet as a society we are not doing anything ā€˜big’ to halt this terrible waste of life, the hundreds of thousands who die prematurely every year.

So why the huge response to Covid19 we ask ourselves? Why this complete economic shutdown to ā€˜save’ perhaps a very large number of people who were going to die soon anyway?

As a normal compassionate person, none of us want to see hundreds of dying people laying in hospital corridors gasping for breath, nor do we want to see any of our loved ones taken before their time by this illness. The footage from Italy has been truly terrible.

It is a fact that our NHS would soon be overwhelmed if we did not try to contain this disease spreading. But that could happen anyway.

So again I ask why? Is there something else we have not been told about this virus? I hate conspiracy theories and all that, but I can not get my head round the doomsday scenario being portrayed worldwide at the moment.

Right from the start, colleagues and I discussed the option of quarantine for the elderly, already sick and those with underlying health conditions, and to allow the remainder of society to get on with it. Herd immunity would have then been built up before slowly exposing those previously quarantined. Yes, there would have been some fatalities, some anomalies…but perhaps the cost better spread between health and economic cost??

As I said…just thinking out loud, and not meaning to offend anyone.

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I for one am not offended by your comment. There are a few on here who may/will be as you have just put the same questions as another poster did. Your ā€œthinkingā€ is quite correct in a lot of peoples view and cannot be solved by mathematics be they linear or exponential. I dont normally join the conspiracy theorists, but this virus appeared almost from nowhere, no one knew about its make up. The speed at which it spread doesnt necessarily infer it is natural but more so a mutated example which was released or escaped. So it does give food for thought that this virus isnt normal. My thoughts are now tending towards it being a bio weapon experiment that went very wrong. I could be wrong and i do sincerely hope i am.

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But surely, if there was reason to suppose that the NHS was in danger of being overwhelmed for whatever reason, action would be taken? And indeed is.
We vaccinate against flu.
We have compulsory vaccination against a whole range of contagious diseases.
Not sure about the UK government but the French government invests in public health campaigns - Pour votre santƩ bougez plus, etc.
The pattern is that when a serious risk has been identified, we try to take effective action.
The point here is that a serious risk has been identified and we don’t have any other action to take apart from social distancing.

For the umpteenth time - it is not about those who would die anyway.

It is about those who will die if the NHS (or the French health service, or the America one, or the Italian one) is swamped.

Figures vary a bit but 5-15% are ill enough to need hospital and ventilatory support and will survive if they get it but die if they do not.

These are not people who ā€œwould die anywayā€.

Just at the moment I am not in the front line of this but fully expect to be if it worsens - and as I’m over 55 I am firmly in the ā€œcould die of itā€ camp - generally I like to keep my chance of death to a minimum so I’d really like people to take it seriously and comply with the movement restrictions.

I have to come to work and i will have to expose myself Covid19 positive patients if we don’t get a lid on it (with whatever PPE the NHS can scrape together).

Comments to suggest it’s ā€œjust like fluā€ or ā€œnot too badā€ or ā€œwhy all the panicā€ do not do my blood pressure any good.

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And hypertension could be bad if you get CV

The fact that the markets have not stopped expanding well beyond the usual 8 to 10 years and debts are enormous across the globe especially in USA leads me to think that this is a grand excuse (by the nasty people in control) to pull the plug, take out the profits and then let the masses deal with the result. Then they can get the trillion dollar offers from government to bail out and start again on a merry journey watching the ordinary people even MORE tied down with ā€œemergency measuresā€ and now the military are (clearly) being involved the ā€œwarā€ is something we should all assist in helping. Who can say ā€œNo thanks sir, I will continue as everā€ without being called a nasty antisocial non-isolationist?
Sorry to come up with such a nasty idea which could severely disrupt the master plan, but I don’t believe ANYTHING I read or hear these days, unless I can PROVE it myself, and you Mr Rimmer have done a very good job of supplying EVIDENCE which none of the readers will check, being as gullible as most are. Enjoy the sunshine - that is REAL!
(Economist and scientist stranded in Europe)

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I would recommend that you read more about the difference between this corona virus and the common flu virus. A simple comparison at the very beginning of this pandemic will not do. Hopefully we will never able to say to you ā€œjust do nothing and wait and seeā€.