What Is the Real Problem With the Coronavirus? By Dr Geoffrey Brushwood
The spread and virulence of a virus is graded by something called an R0 number.
It describes the number of individuals each carrier can infect. The coronavirus has an R0 number of 2.4 (some want to upgrade it to 7).
To give proportionality the measles virus has an R0 of 18.
The mortality rate of measles is currently 0.2% but there’s many other severe complications such as seizures 0.6 - 0.7% which can cause significant neurological damage or death by itself, and encephalitis (swelling of brain) in 0.1%.
Over 30% of patients with measles develop more than one complication
Measles complications
Diarrhea 8%
Otitis media 7%
Pneumonia 6%
Encephalitis 0.1%
Seizures 0.6-0.7%
Compare that with the current mortality rate of the coronavirus in China. In all of China as initially in Wuhan it was 4% and now has reduced to less than 2%, reduced over time to 0.7%.
In my opinion there’s a great deal of unnecessary fear and catastrophic predictions about the coronavirus, as much as Brexit or Donald Trump’s climate policy.
However, we are faced with a new virus against which our societies do not have a basic immunity.
Therfore, without countermeasures many more people will get sick during the first, second and third wave of a new virus onslaught than during a normal flu season.
This is the problem: Hospitals will become overwhelmed and the health care system will break down just as it did in Wuhan, China.
A health care system that is overwhelmed with coronavirus cases can also no longer take care of regular cases.
People with an acute heart attack, with diabetes problems, or kids who have fallen off a bicycle will find that the hospitals are full and unable to care for them.
