Coronavirus worries?

[MyNameIsTerry]

56 deaths now being reported out of China. To put that in perspective, 6,600 people have died from the flu in the USA this winter so far and it's not even an unusual flu year. Both numbers are certain to rise as the season continues.

Sent from my moto g(7) power using Tapatalk

Seasonal flu is far more potent than this coronavirus but people love a good panic and the media are feeding into this.

Exactly. How many people die of seasonal flu, something which we can handle, every year? About 600 on average in the UK die. Seems like Chinese Flu has some way to go to catch up. Between 2013-2014 we had 11k die form seasonal flu which is naturally worrying to the health authorities as it was a spike but now we are back to average and it's often because of colder winters hitting, health funding and management in a spike, different strains, etc.

So, now that we know this are we going to stop travelling to the US during winter? And the UK too? Are we all going to avoid large population centres? When all the flu stories were raging I can't remember seeing the crowds of shoppers turning into handfuls.

[MyNameIsTerry]

I'm an Aussie and never even heard of the "Aussie flu". When was this?

We have 4 cases of the coronavirus here in Aus now, the first man diagnosed is in a hospital 20 minutes from me, and I don't even care.

That's exactly what the other person said.

Here is a typical example of an article we were seeing over winter 2017-2018:

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...-a8160291.html

That's one of the more middle of the road media outlets compared to such as the Daily Mail who you can imagine were whipping up fear. It tells us it was causing one of the worst Australian epidemics yet members on here said their media weren't in a frenzy like ours.

This just tells me that it's about clicks and whipping it up. Forget flu and remember the media fearmongering over HIV/AIDS which we were al supposed to be terrified of getting off a toilet seat back in the 80-90s.

With Aussie flu the mortality rate did go up but then it started to come down again and the government were reporting no weekly unusual levels compared to expected.

I can even remember one year where we were told excess winter deaths had risen by 50k. It turned out the Office for National Statistics (ONS) had counted al winter deaths irrespective of cause. You can imagine how the media went wild over 50k extra fly deaths.

[Matthew1233]

Exactly. How many people die of seasonal flu, something which we can handle, every year? About 600 on average in the UK die. Seems like Chinese Flu has some way to go to catch up. Between 2013-2014 we had 11k die form seasonal flu which is naturally worrying to the health authorities as it was a spike but now we are back to average and it's often because of colder winters hitting, health funding and management in a spike, different strains, etc.

So, now that we know this are we going to stop travelling to the US during winter? And the UK too? Are we all going to avoid large population centres? When all the flu stories were raging I can't remember seeing the crowds of shoppers turning into handfuls.

Although this is not the flu, but coronavirus

[lanerbanana]

read that in thailand, out of the 8 people infected, 3 are being treated and 5 have recovered and gone home
thats actually kinda relieving to hear

[pulisa]

Legionnaire's disease is far more of a risk but no one ever panics about that because there's no media scaremongering/it's not dramatic enough to grab interest

[fishman65]

Terry and Pulisa, thank goodness for your common sense and rational thinking. I was ok about this whole thing on Friday, in fact took Dad to hossy for his macular degeneration treatment. But yesterday things went downhill after reading news reports of how the Chinese were struggling to contain this coronavirus etc. So last night on going to bed I was in the blackest mood ever, totally resigned to losing Mrs F and my Dad after the contagion had swept through the UK like the bubonic plague once did.

But thank you both, I have some hope now. Crikey I never used to be like this, I don't even remember the SARS outbreak in 2002/03 let alone panic over it. Or wasn't it in the news?

PS - yes the Daily Mail seems to be reporting this outbreak with 'glee' almost?

[jray23]

The thing that is scaring me is that it can now spread before symptoms now even show. Is SARS/MERS like this?

I don't know about those specifically but there are a lot of diseases that spread during the incubation period or by asymptomatic carriers.

Sent from my moto g(7) power using Tapatalk

[jray23]

Fishman65 - I don't remember MERS much but SARS was everywhere in the news that year. As was swine flu. Both were massively hyped up by the media. The news just wasn't as available back then.

Sent from my moto g(7) power using Tapatalk

[Toby2000]

I’m feeling really doomed and scared

I’m out right now with family but I just feel like going home and crying because I feel like this really is it. I’ve tried to be rational but perhaps I’ve been convinced by the scaremongering, I don’t know

What’s worse is that I have had some mild stomach upset over the past few days

AND I HAD CHINESE FOOD a couple of nights ago. Tell me I’m being stupid? I’m sooo scared

[pulisa]

Ok..you're being melodramatic but I do think a crisis appeals to you as it does to a lot of people on here. You are intelligent and you must use your common sense here. You know you are being ridiculous really.