Yeah, I don't disagree with you guys in theory at all.
I focus on the science and figuring out this puzzle from an epidemiological perspective, I'm not freaking out and won't be......never does any good anyway.
(I don't deny that I was speaking earlier of being "concerned" because of a personal situation, ie. my SIL is sitting in a hyperbaric 02 chamber right now post radical double mastectomy that got infected......and my elderly sick mom is in a weakened state at age 92. I'd have to be an inanimate boulder not to be feeling anxious about of all this
). Plus all that hospital-related stuff when you have to put them in the hospital just sets you on end.......well, you just have to deal with the hand you're dealt.
So--back to what is interesting
....this particular virus it is not hitting children, or they are having mild cases and/or symptom-less.
That alone seems like it would help general research in the area of flu viruses, because this is not true of the regular seasonal flu.
As Jeff P. noted, the elderly are indeed the ones getting hit hard, which is true of any communicable disease. My final thoughts are that millions of people, worldwide, will
probably get this flu, so it will serve like an extension of seasonal flu season....which we were hoping to be at the tail end of this time of year.
And, that the typical populations that don't do well with these things will be hardest hit......and the rest of the population will just suffer the typical flu and cold season outcomes like they do every year, some with dire outcomes but most without dire outcomes.
I think the *novelty* of discovering a new virus is what is concerning the experts. But it's
probably not much different than the ones we already have. (Or will have, as the world gets more mobile, and we continue to dig up and disturb environments that haven't been explored and some of "weird stuff" is going to jump out and go looking for a ride on new hosts. .....
I dunno how many of these things will or should require full-on hazmat suits. I guess we will find out! Here we sit, the earth just spinning on it's axis........an adventure to be sure.
I left out the bad part: many health systems may be overwhelmed by this.
