How lethal is Covid19

BananaRepublic

I’ve read academic articles that show that CV19 is deadly for many, especially the old and sick. There is an interesting piece on the BBC news site. Apparently UK analyses of CV19 deaths do not exclude people who would most likely have died anyway. Whereas flu deaths include those due to flu only, and exclude people who would have died anyway. Having worked in research 30 years ago, I know that science is a process of discussion, and I worry that a small number of experts are setting the agenda without proper discourse. Anyone have any solid input on this? Anyone here work in virology? 

tacpot12

I don't work in virology, but the thrust of your question seems to be that the small number of experts are overreacting.
 Covid-19 is clearly a very deadly disease. You only have to look at the numbers who have recovered from it vs. the number who have died from. In the UK two days ago, the number was 71 dead, 64 recovered. Today, 177 dead, 65 recovered! (Source: John Hopkins Coronavirus Response Centre). This disease is going to kill most of the people that get bad symptoms. If you are lucky enough to get it mildly, you probably won't be tested as there is no enough testing capability, and so you won't appear in the Recovered stats.

The important data issue here isn't about underlying conditions people may or may not have, but of a lack of testing. If we had enough testing capacity we would have a true picture of the mortality rate. The experts are aware of this - I only know about the issue because the small number of experts released the information to the press so that people can see that we are operating with an incomplete understanding of the data, and therefore extra precautions need to be taken. 

BananaRepublic

The BBC article will have been widely read, and I’m sure the experts will provide forecasts taking into account deaths that would have occurred. Given that Italian hospitals have been overwhelmed it does appear that it is more severe than standard flu. My understanding is that we have no antibodies to the new virus, unlike flu. 

I am pleased by the government response in supporting jobs, and not bankers this time but ordinary people.