This is a guest post by Mater, reposted with permission.
When you hear the Premiers indicate that we will remain under house arrest until we have zero cases and no community transmission, please keep this in mind.
The 2009 Swine flu (A(H1N1)pdm09) has been lurking around killing people during the flu season up to, and including, 2020, when deaths from any variety of flu completely, and miraculously, stopped in July of that year. That being, incidentally, almost exactly the time when Covid deaths started during the second wave in Victoria.
To summarise:
If we’d taken the same approach to A(H1N1)pdm09 as we have with Covid 19 and its variants, we would still be locked down, more than a decade later.
Remember, also, that A(H1N1)pdm09 attacks primarily the younger generations and, like all flus, tends to primarily kill those with co-morbidity factors. That, and the fact that younger people suffer less co-morbidities, would seem to be the telling factor in the death rate differences (although Covid-21 seems less deadly than A(H1N1)pdm09). The specialists seem to explain this by indicating that it is now more prevalent in the young.
“The ratio of deaths to cases in the year to date has decreased in comparison to this time last year, noting substantially lower case numbers this year and the difference in age distributions of those infected in 2021 versus 2020.”
Year to date (2020) 1 January – 1 August 2020 – Case Fatality Rate = 2.75%
Year to date (2021) 1 January – 1 August 2021 – Case Fatality Rate = 0.28%
I rest my case.
Still waiting for covid to actually get going in this country.
I agree rosie. The first wave hasn’t happened yet, but it will when (if) the country is opened up for international travel.
We will also get a nasty flu season as well, maybe a catastrophic one if a particularly nasty strain of flu emerges.
God knows what the government will do then. Hopefully sanity will have returned by then.
This idiocy has to end.
It looks more and more like the cov was just an excuse for implementing a bunch of stuff the technocrats always wanted to shove down our throats. They may have gauged that the populace has been dumbed down and polarised enough for them to seize the moment. They really are a grisly bunch.
Just as well the cdc is insisting that tests are now capable of detecting more than just covid-19.
I agree re International travel covid-19 is rampant in the third world and no doubt madly mutating as well as our perennial friend flu.
We can hope for sanity. It appears to be prevalent in the UK and US.
Arky, do you follow Martin Armstrong’s prognostications?
His ‘Socrates’ forecasts were for a pandemic in 2022 and when the ‘rona hit people asked if this was the lergie come early. Nope, he didn’t think so – he’s still expecting worse next year. But he’s firmly in your camp about the ‘grisly bunch’ and their desire to depopulate the earth.
He used to be pretty sceptical about ‘conspiracy theories’ but the last couple of years has changed his thinking a bit. As it has with many. You obviously can’t believe all the CTs because they contradict each other, but you may as well believe what our overlords tell us they want to achieve, even if you think they’ll ultimately fail.
The time has come Ellen, for dissidents, civil disobedience and parallel institutions.
Before we lose even the memory of the freedoms we had.
Think of the children!
I thought this was the truth of the matter.
Arky!
The major issue is the politicians refuse to listen to us, even if someone were to put a bullet through Dan (NADT – supposition only*) and his successor were to backtrack on the controlling demands they make, the rest wouldn’t take heed – they’d just increase their personal security and the assassin would still be in gaol.
Who would want to be first in the queue to register their kinetic protest?
* I use this example as the ultimate in citizen protest – repeat NADT.
How’s the Taliban in
Baghram and KabulMelbourne and Sydney working out for everyone?please learn what exponential growth is and what it would mean for the hospital sector.
Before covid there were a few thousand waiting for elective surgery occurring in the UK now it is a couple of a hundred thousand!
I know exactly what exponential growth is.
If they believed in exponential growth, what would ‘two weeks to flatten the curve’ have done?
In regards to hospitals and ICU’s, you do realise that during the peak of 2009, A(H1N1)pdm09 filled 1.2% (974 cases) of the available private and public hospital beds (54,338 beds) and 10% (about 237 cases) of the 2378 ICU beds? Yet they didn’t lock us down.
Let’s look at where we are today, shall we?
Cases in hospital = 423…less than half that of 2009
Cases in ICU = 66…nearly four times less than in 2009
Yet they have locked us down.
By all means, go and look at the figure from the peak period last August, your justification doesn’t get any better.
Perhaps wait to suspend human rights, at least until you at least equal the 2009 event.
Case Fatality Rate of Covid in 2021 = 0.28%
Case Fatality Rate of A(H1N1)pdm09 in 2009 = 0.51%
We have less chance of dying from Covid in 2021.
To finish off, remember that A(H1N1)pdm09 was still floating around in 2019, a decade later. It even had a resurgence in 2018. Did they lock us down for 10 years in fear of overwhelming the healthcare system? No, clearly not.
I would argue that A(H1N1)pdm09 was more serious because it attacked the younger generation, and especially pregnant women. It was usual that way. Attack the older generation, as per Covid, is much more typical of standard influenza.
Do try to think critically and do your research rather than belief everything you are spoon feed.
BTW, the elective surgery problem is a result of government overreaction.
From the Lancet:
Too long to wait: the impact of COVID-19 on elective surgery
Additionally, in further response to your comment about “exponential growth”, and getting back to the crux of this musing, what is the R Value of Covid versus A(H1N1)pdm09?
In India they estimated Covid to be 1.37 when it went rampant.
Studies indicate that A(H1N1)pdm09 was 1.46.
Yet they didn’t lock us down.
you still have no idea of what exponential growth means for hospitals at all.
Not Trampis has a slogan, and will keep repeating it forever, mindlessly.
Really what happened in India. People were being treated in cars. That is what exponential growth does!
Is ignorance a trait boasted about here.
the delta variant kills less about 0.3% to 1% but is much more virulent. you needed to be in contact for about 15 minutes previously now it is a fleeting moment.
however long covid is still deadly around 1 in 3 to 1 in 8 who get it and those who die from diseases exacerbated by covid is still the same 1 in 12.
By the way estimating a figure in India is absurd since the data is ahem questionable mind you comparing swine flu to covid is equally lubricous..
“Not Trampis says:
August 17, 2021 at 9:26 am”
..
Piss off Iampeter.
Test.
All doctors have a god complex – it’s one of the attractions of the job.
The worst of them, marinated in green left fascism, join the public service as a way of implementing green left fascism in public policy without the need for democratic accountability.
They know they would never be elected on a doctor’s favourite hobby horses – high tax imposts on sugary drinks, crushing the free market with government climate change levies, for example. Much easier to do it via the public service back door.
And now the mother of all forms of social control on the ungrateful proletariat for their own good: locking them in their homes to stop them catching this year’s flu virus.
The government health Nazis buy off the politicians by promising them political immortality – with the help of media hysteria – and re-election as the leaders who make Tough Decisions to save people from themselves because thy can’t be trusted with adult decision-making.
This is Big Government’s ultimate destination – fascist anti-democratic tyranny by unelected experts. Kung Flu has just brought the process forward by a decade or so.
Not Compos Mentis
the delta variant kills less about 0.3% to 1% but is much more virulent.
You need to look up the definitions of “transmissable” and “virulent”.
Also “lubricious”.
oh nothing miraculous about the flu having less effect. social distancing. the wearing of masks and working from home etc makes that statement look very silly. no flu season this year either for the same reasons.
Not Trampis
So the highly contagious seasonal flu is defeated by masks, social distancing and working from home (though you seem unaware that many people do not work from home), but the Kung Flu is not?
PS, looked up virulent and lubricious yet?
I see an education lesson is needed.
If a virus is transmissible then it is highly likely it is virulent.
In this case although the delta variant directly kills less people the proportions affecting long covid and indirectly killing people are similar thus far although to be fair this might change.
As Delta affects more people it is entirely virulent.
The common flu is not nearly contagious as covid. Most people either work form home or don’t work at all. Those who work in an office socially distance and now have to wear a mask.
Not Trampis (Non Compos Mentis)
Stop squirming, producing more cr@p in a failed attempt to justify your earlier failed cr@p.
“highly likely” is just a weasel phrase by a weasel.
You have re-defined “virulent”, and made unsupported statements about “most people” working from home or not at all. Clearly, you are not a deep thinker. How do you think food gets on the shelves, trains and buses run, power is generated, and many other essential services continue.
Go back to kundy, and try for the next dozen or so years to actually learn something this time.
kindy!
So I bring figures, evidence and contentions and you answer with generalisations, smears and dismissals?
Yep, that about sums up your side of this debate throughout this entire, sorry episode. If your main thrust is the overwhelming of the health system, perhaps leave “long” Covid in the cupboard. That dog don’t hunt in this particular argument.
BTW, with an R Value of 1.46, was exponential growth not equally applicable to it?
Why didn’t the government lock us down when it had the ICU’s 10% full?
Was 10% when the exponential function failed?
We’re the people dealing with the problem in 2009 all so dumb that they missed the miracle cure of the ‘lockdown’.
What about those dealing with the Spanish Flu in 1919? With an R Value of 1.8, surely lockdown was an opportunity gone begging?
I love it when nurses bring their limited anecdotal evidence (and the unquestionable word of their higher Gods) to a data based argument. Happens to me all the time.
Seems that Non Compos Trampis still hasn’t worked out that a virus can be highly transmissible (spreads easily) without being highly virulent (extremely severe or harmful). Like the common cold.
Back to kindy for he/she/ze, to be properly educated.
I see some people attempt to be supercilious. Trying to be so when you do not understand a subject makes you look foolish.
Mater we are experiencing exponential growth here in NSW and we have a lockdown, In your very first statistics class you are told only use data that is robust. It is clearly not robust in India. It never was. more so when you realise it is the affluent middle class that use hospitals there. The rich go overseas and the poor are told to go away if they turn up.
Even given that people were in cars in almost every city experiencing the delta variant. even that they had to buy their own oxygen.
no lockdown here would see all hospital wards full and the workers over worked so mistakes would follow i.e more people would die.
Covid crowds out everything else so if you had a heart attack then good luck getting any treatment under your scenario.
In India the delta variant after some time suddenly fell away. We can only hope that occurs here.
Non Trampis Mentis
I see some people attempt to be supercilious. Trying to be so when you do not understand a subject makes you look foolish.
Indeed, this has been very noticeable in your comments.
Have you worked out the difference between transmissibility and virulence yet? Checked out the definition of lubricious yet?
quite clearly you have trouble in understanding why the transmission rates meant it was more virulent.
hint it has to do with proportions.
So, is it a Grigsock? Or should we be celebrating the New Cat’s first Getup! troll?
It’s a mark of distinction and importance, you know. The Dash Cat only has Bird and the Stoush Snobs.
We, however, have drawn the attention of the Internet-tional Left’s high and mighty…
Forgot the appropriate emoji…
???
Let me try again…
🧐
🧐
🧐
Neither are ours, apparently.
See Mater’s Musings #3.
Non Compos Trampis
I realise that you are simply an ignorant troll, and not a very good one, but what do you find so difficult to understand about the definition of virulent (extremely severe or harmful)? It has nothing to do with proportions of people infected, but the impact on those people.
Kindly take your gross ignorance (defined as 144 troll posts) elsewhere.
How are you going with the definition of “lubricious”? Too hard for you?