said as of yet, they don't have any reason to believe it is contagious while asymptomatic.

"A study by the medical journal The Lancet, published on Friday, had raised concerns that people infected with the coronavirus might be able to spread it even if they do not have flulike symptoms."

That in reality the flu is way more dangerous..

https://www.insider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-lesser-threat-to-americans-than-flu-2020-1

Approximately 20 times last year's death/number of infections.

The article doesn't explain why it says the flu is a greater threat - but presumably that is becuase currently there are only 2 confirmed cases in the US.

This one in Orange County CA.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/26/world/china-coronavirus.html

There would be far more deaths from the coronavirus because the coronavirus death rate is higher than that of influenza.

What the article didn't explain was the assumptions it was making to arrive at the conclusion that there won't be far more deaths this year from the coronavirus than the flu. The assumptions about this year have nothing to with the absolute number of deaths from influenza last year - they have to be related to something that will prevent he threat of the coronary from materializing. That can only come from three sources: the infection rate of the coronavirus is lower than the current numbers would suggest, the transmission rate is lower, or the currently infected population is too low to create an infected population of about 2.25 million (the population of people infected with coronavirus that would produce an equivalent number of deaths).

In other words, the flu is a relatively known quantity. What assumptions did the authors make about the coronavirus to arrive at the conclusion that it will be less of a threat than influenza virus, since the infection and death rates would suggest (since both of those suggest it will be 2 and 20 times worse, respectively.

But corona virus hasn't spread (yet). If they don't manage to contain it, it will kill more people because it's likely more infectious and has higher mortality rate.

(59 confirmed deaths from 2019 confirmed cases)

Last year's flu death rate was .14% (57,300 out of 41.3 million), as of April.

In other words the death rate is nearly 20 times higher (based on the numbers currently available).

42.9 million infections, with 61,200 deaths - 0.14%

So while the flu may (may...) be less contagious, this coronavirus appears to be quite a bit more lethal, based on the current data. We'll see what happens as the infected population grows.

I can't find the current (revised) estimates for this particular coronavirus but my recollection is that the R value was around 2.5.

So both more deadly and more contagious. But - so far - significantly fewer infected bodies.

If the flu is that much lower it's no wonder some epidemiologists are having conniptions.

Higher death rate and higher infection rate-a lot of people dying.

Apparent rates hold. 2000 cases is a pretty small number of cases from which to make accurate predictions.

I think the death rate is probably higher - but may drop as we figure out what is making it deadly and can better address it. I think the infection rate will likely be lower. It's been lowered pretty dramatically already once.

An infected person with say an infection with a virus with an R.O. of 1 walks in a room with 10 people, that person will infect 1 other person, and that virus will continue to spread.

With this virus, instead of infecting 1, this person for will infect roughly 4. This thing will burn through us like a wildfire.

It's still too early for any estimate to be trustworthy because of the small infected population and the number of undiscovered cases.

I just read that the 1918-1919 flu pandemic had an R0 of about 2.

An earlier estimate of 3.8 has apparently been withdrawn.

you would need past data from the same populations having been exposed to both diseases.

You can't compare prior year U.S. flu spread data to Chinese coronavirus data that hasn't even matured over a long period of time.

Further, almost any disease will likely spread much faster in China vs the U.S. due to poorer sanitary, dietary and healthcare conditions, along with very crowded living conditions.

This is one of the best perspective articles I've found relating to this discussion:

Why Washington state’s health experts aren’t panicking yet about the Wuhan coronavirus
The Seattle Times
Jan. 24, 2020 at 7:39 pm

Link: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/why-washington-states-health-experts-arent-panicking-yet-about-the-wuhan-coronavirus/

(snips)

around the world now in spite of containment efforts. Awareness that translates into citizen demand for funding is a good thing. I was in a small urgent care clinic Saturday and saw 3 separate people (out of maybe a dozen) wearing paper face masks. I forgot to ask the staff what that was about so have no idea if they see that in their waiting room every flu season now or what.

Once I got over being reassured by only 3%, I realized that's actually a lot. We and our close friends and relatives all have more "real" people than that in our lives. Before counting our on-line lives and friends there.

death rate "going round." Of course, experts say that number's extremely unreliable/worthless at this point. They don't know what it will be.

The statistics about flu deaths are very misleading. We often hear, "30,000 flu deaths per year in the USA!!!" In a bad year we might hear "50,000!!!" These numbers are not actually flu deaths.

These numbers we hear whenever there is a flu vaccine discussion are actually ALL deaths from respiratory illnesses in a given year. That includes the old ladies who fall down and break a hip and get pneumonia and die. That includes people who die after a cold or bronchitis develops into pneumonia. That includes people with advanced cardiac conditions who get the flu and die from it, but who would have died if they caught any other virus as well.

Actual deaths from the flu are much fewer than the number the media tosses around. The vast, vast majority of people who get the flu recover without incident.

The coronavirus is spreading like wildfire. Watch this site:
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
Last night that number was 1400. Today that's up by about 35%. At this rate, it will have a much greater impact than any flu since 1918.

That site also shows us that, so far, more people have died of the coronavirus than have recovered.

That's how Coronavirus is worse than the flu.

The numbers had changed from earlier in the evening and the site said "last update: 2 minutes ago". Just now, the time and number of confirmed cases, deaths, and total recovered are the same as last night.

It seems as though they stopped updating. That worries me more than anything else I have seen about the Wuhan coronavirus.

longer intervals.

And the figure of cases is a little higher, but not a lot. Deaths are the same and recovered higher.

I wonder how often they update - every twelve or so hours would be reasonable.

The graph looks seriously exponential. If that's not just due to better reporting, this o e looks at the mo.ent like it could be a bomb. Doubling in one day? Jesus. We'll see how the next week plays out

undiagnosed cases are walking around out there.

I know there are those who will say it is alarmist to be concerned....

.... but I am VERY concerned.

Worse than the flu

If 90,000 people a year die from flu, and this coronavirus is as contagious and lethal as the flu, we could have an ADDITONAL 90,000 dead as both diseases operate at once in global populations.

You're adding an extra player to the field, so to speak.

The normal flu virus mutates over the year. The stats include all varieties. The flu is never just one thing and the new coronavirus won't be static in the long run. It may mutate out of danger in a few weeks, months or it could get worse.

1. It's still reported as being more contagious than the flu.

2. It's still reported as having a higher fatality rate than the flu.

Both of these may also be due to reason #3.

3. Nobody's had it and nobody's been vaccinated against it apart from a few thousand (or hundred thousand) people, mostly in China. With the flu, a lot of people have full or partial immunity and both reduce the transmission rate and the severity of symptoms.

Take the Spanish Flu. It's hard to know if it was really worse than the typical flu varieties because so many people had partial or full immunity to all the flu strains going around, while the SF was novel.