I think there's an equivocation about which is deadlier. It may be less deadly in terms of the death toll, but deadlier in terms of the virulence of the pathogen. Of course, it's too soon to know the cumulative death toll. So the comparison people are making fails to distinguish between different ways of defining "deadly". A Taipan is deadlier than a Timber rattlesnake in terms of toxicity, but if you live in W. Virginia, you're unlikely to be bitten by a Taipan.
Good point!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I've heard many infectious disease experts argue influenza is one of the deadliest (if not the deadliest) viruses with us today. For example, I wrote the following about influenza not too long ago:
I wouldn't necessarily say a coronavirus such as COVID-19 is more dangerous than influenza. Influenza is no joke. Many infectious disease experts have long argued that influenza is the most threatening virus to humanity. That it has the most potential to cause a pandemic. And indeed it has. I mean influenza might seem routine to people, but the truth is influenza has caused many of the most severe epidemics and pandemics in human history. Influenza has caused severe epidemics and pandemics in 1743, 1889, 1918 (the Spanish flu), 1957 (the Asian flu), 1968 (the Hong Kong flu), 1977 (the Russian flu), and 2009 (the Swine flu).
Influenza is dangerous because influenza has very high mutation rates and frequent genetic reassortments. That is, influenza can mutate on its own (antigenic drift), but it can also mutate when two different influenza viruses infect a human or an animal (e.g. pig) at the same time, they swap and rearrange genetic material, and create a new hybrid virus (antigenic shift). Influenza's antigenic drift is often enough to fluster our immune systems, hence the need for annual flu shots aka flu vaccines. However, its antigenic shift can wreak havoc on our immune systems. That's how all the aforementioned influenza pandemics started.
40,000-60,000 people die every year in the US alone from influenza, and it has killed young as well as old. That's with our current vaccines.
DeleteMy fear is that we're going to try to wait for 0 new COVID infections before society goes back to normal. That number's never going to happen.