Editorial: The deadly flu vs. the coronavirus pandemic
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The comparisons are inevitable.
Coronavirus is a contagious respiratory illness you can pick up from a doorknob or a stray sneeze. Some infected people show no symptoms. Others come down with what ranges from a bad to a monstrous cold. An alarming number of people need hospital treatment. Many die.
Influenza can do the same.
In this year’s flu season, which started in September and ran through the end of March, there were 129,912 people who tested with the flu in Pennsylvania. There were 102 that died.
In February, the novel coronavirus identified in China was becoming a hot topic but still seemed like something that happened in other countries or other states. Some rolled their eyes at the idea of pandemic response.
On March 6, the first case was diagnosed in Pennsylvania. On March 13, Gov. Tom Wolf closed schools. Eyes rolled again. People die of the flu, too. We don’t close things down for the flu.
As of April 5, Pennsylvania has more than 10,000 diagnosed cases. There were 136 deaths — 34 happened between the release of Friday’s numbers and Saturday’s.
In one month, the new virus killed one-third more people than the flu did in half a year. It did it with lethal efficiency and about 8% of the diagnoses. There is no vaccine for this coronavirus and, despite some promising developments, there won’t be one for maybe a year. It’s called “novel” because scientists are still figuring out how it works.
We can’t pretend covid-19, the disease caused by coronavirus, is just the flu in a different outfit. It isn’t. And the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s report on the end of the flu season shows that.
The numbers show that in this flu season — the worst flu season in years — the number of new cases dropped like a stone as social distancing was implemented. At the same time, coronavirus cases blossomed, despite the lockdowns.
That doesn’t mean we have to panic. It doesn’t mean we resign ourselves to being caged while our jobs disappear and the economy crumbles.
It means we have to accept the reality of a threat to meet it in battle. We must summon our strengths to preserve our society and economy now, while planning for the long term.
On Saturday, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, said Pennsylvania, Colorado and the District of Columbia will start to hit the ugly part of the disease’s mortality curve soon. New York, Michigan and Louisiana are expected to hit their peak this week.
If we are going to weather the storm, unlock our economy and get our lives back on track, we have to admit the truth.
Coronavirus might have a lot in common with the flu, but pretending it is the same is a mistake.