There are three important metrics for epidemiologists to determine how many people will die from a particular disease: R naught, mortality rate and world population. R naught is a mathematical equation that show how many people will get sick from each infected person. Estimates of R naught for COVID-19 have ranged from 1.4 to about 5. The WHO has estimated COVID-19 to be around 1.95 and other estimates put it around 2.2, meaning about two people will catch the virus from every person who already has it.
Now there are some data.
Seasonal flu or common flu is also called influza. With only 0.1% mortality rate it kills 290,000 to 650,000 people per year across the globe. If the current mortality for CV-19 holds at 4.5%, it would make this coronavirus 45 times deadlier than the flu.
2009 H1N1 has the R naught 1.5 and mortality 0.02%. The swine flu emerged in Mexico in April 2009, infecting 60.8 million people in the US and at least 700 million worldwide. An estimated 151700 to 575400 people die from it across the globe which has a population at 2.87 billion.
Now comes to 1918 flu pandemic, which is also known as Spanish flu, though didn't actually originate in Spain. It has a R naught about 1.8 and mortality rate of 2.5%. It is one of the most horrific pandemic of the 20th century, hitting those ages 20 to 40 especially hard, according to WHO. With the mortality rate of 2.5% under the COVID-19's 4.5%, it kills more people-30 to 50 million-than the 20 million who died in World War I.
Let's see our familiar SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome, which is a coronavirus emerged in November 2002 but didn't spread wide enough to become a pandemic. SARS has R naught 2 to 5 and a much higher mortality rate 10%. More importantly SARS was generally transmitted only after people started showing symptoms, which helped contain the outbreak. So it only infected 8098 worldwide by July 2003 and killed nearly 800 people.
So we now know one virus is too killful to transfer himself, for it damages the transmitters themselves. now we come to one of the most contagious viruses in the world.
Measles has an R naught of 12 to 18 and a difficultly determined mortality rate. Because it is so easy to infect a vaccine was developed in the early 1960s. In 2009 worldwide measles vaccination coverage reached at 82%, and from 2000 to 2008, the number of deaths from measles dropped from 733000 to 164000. If COVID-19 has a r naught aroud 2, we are maybe not needed to vaccine everyone. It will take a minimum of 12 to 18 months for a vaccine to make it to the market according to U.S. officals. So fast tracking clinical trials on drugs that show promise in treating the virus, telling people to stay indoors, keeping distance and washing their hands often are still the effective measures now.
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is famous for its systemic pathology and philosophic promise to treat pre-disease (unsymptom). Many no symptom COVID-19 carriers have been found, so before we can dictate the effective chemical drugs, I believe TCM will be a good method to treat the mild patient which is already practiced in the ground zero Wuhan and get good results. Chinese wisdom can rise to the occasion this time.
God bless the west. Hope the death decrease quickly. At last a vedio about the contagious for you to study and have an "imposed" holiday at home, keep smiling and in confidence.
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