What’s the best way to convince skeptics of the severity of COVID? I keep seeing people saying it’s just a slightly worse flu, or that car accidents kill a lot more people, and so on. I want some short text or image that illustrates just how serious this is.
A nice figure is that 1 person infected with COVID-19 requires (I think) 100x the hospital capacity of 1 person infected with the flu − 30x likelier to need hospitalization, and they stay there 3x longer if they do (you’ll have to check these figures, but it’s something like that I think...). Then that connects to the nightmarish Italian hospital situation you mention, and the fact that the death rate is dramatically higher without available hospital beds, including for young healthy people.
Angela Merkel says that 60-70% of Germany is likely to be infected. That’s useful if people believe that it won’t infect that many. Example source, though you can google for others.
If they’re willing to believe a redditor’s summary, this one says that WHO says that 20% of infected people needed hospital treatment for weeks. (If they want primary sources, maybe you could find those claims in the links / somewhere else.)
Putting together 1 and 2 (and generalising from Germany to whatever country they’re in), they ought to be convinced that it’s pretty severe.
It’s likely that at some point, widespread transmission of COVID-19 in the United States will occur. Widespread transmission of COVID-19 would translate into large numbers of people needing medical care at the same time. Schools, childcare centers, and workplaces, may experience more absenteeism. Mass gatherings may be sparsely attended or postponed. Public health and healthcare systems may become overloaded, with elevated rates of hospitalizations and deaths. Other critical infrastructure, such as law enforcement, emergency medical services, and sectors of the transportation industry may also be affected. Healthcare providers and hospitals may be overwhelmed. At this time, there is no vaccine to protect against COVID-19 and no medications approved to treat it.
What’s the best way to convince skeptics of the severity of COVID? I keep seeing people saying it’s just a slightly worse flu, or that car accidents kill a lot more people, and so on. I want some short text or image that illustrates just how serious this is.
I found this heartbreaking testimony from an Italian ICU doctor: https://twitter.com/silviast9/status/1236933818654896129
But I guess skeptics will want a more authoritative source.
A nice figure is that 1 person infected with COVID-19 requires (I think) 100x the hospital capacity of 1 person infected with the flu − 30x likelier to need hospitalization, and they stay there 3x longer if they do (you’ll have to check these figures, but it’s something like that I think...). Then that connects to the nightmarish Italian hospital situation you mention, and the fact that the death rate is dramatically higher without available hospital beds, including for young healthy people.
Angela Merkel says that 60-70% of Germany is likely to be infected. That’s useful if people believe that it won’t infect that many. Example source, though you can google for others.
If they’re willing to believe a redditor’s summary, this one says that WHO says that 20% of infected people needed hospital treatment for weeks. (If they want primary sources, maybe you could find those claims in the links / somewhere else.)
Putting together 1 and 2 (and generalising from Germany to whatever country they’re in), they ought to be convinced that it’s pretty severe.
It is now literally not true that car accidents kill more people, in either the UK or Italy, and won’t be true in the US in about a week.
I’ve found the time-delayed log graphs like this one pretty convincing: https://images.app.goo.gl/iKrfzw9Wt7hAqkVB6
For today, I have been directing people to this chart of Italian intensive care hospitalizations and deaths, 2020 COVID-19 vs 2018-2019 flu season: https://twitter.com/DellAnnaLuca/status/1236805732525207552
(Source: http://www.biotecnologi.org/ecco-perche-il-coronavirus-non-e-una-semplice-influenza/)
As well as this news story about Italy banning all public gatherings across the whole country: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51810673
Plus the fact the the stock market is down >10% over the last week...
Maybe citing the CDC: