Oh my god - the problem is a vast number of people are burying their head in the sand , and either don’t understand or don’t want to understand the situation. ....... Anyone comparing it to avian flu, and SARS etc is deluded.
Iain, I specifically asked "is it more virulent than anything we've seen previously?" and you appear to have answered the question.
I'm just a member of Joe Public without the inside knowledge or resources you may have, so to imply that folk such as I are deluded is rather disingenuous. If you want people to understand then explain - don't insult them.
..... The basics are - it’s like nothing that has ever been seen before. ...... The mortality rate is higher than we have ever seen before. ....
Ok, now steady on with the hyperbole, insults and being insulted, chaps.
There are a varying levels of information, understanding and legitimate opinion here, and we need be be respectful of that. Nobody (really,
nobody) knows everything about this, or how it will play out, even if some people on here are better informed than others or are highly confident that they are right.
And specifically:
It seems to me that anyone "comparing it to avian flu, and SARS, etc," is surely absolutely entitled to do so, since the SARS pathogen is very similar indeed to the COVID-19 pathogen - and indeed the virus in the current outbreak has actually been officially named SARS-CoV-2. The rate of transmission and the medical impact might well be very different but the comparison is certainly valid.
https://www.who.int/emergencies/dis...ase-(covid-2019)-and-the-virus-that-causes-it
And it is rather bold to say that "the mortality rate is higher than we have ever seen before" given that MERS (caused by another, comparable, coronavirus, MERS-CoV), had a death rate of over 30% (based on WHO figures for deaths/confirmed cases).
https://www.who.int/emergencies/mers-cov/en/