By Polygraph
Dominic Gregorio
senior, University of Pennsylvania
“I wish the economy and the academy were not so easily incapacitated by the common cold. I wish (U. Penn) President Gutmann had heard the COVID-19 mortality rates in the U.S. were just above 0.1 percent, very similar to the seasonal flu, and acted like it.”
Source: The UPENN Statesman, March 18, 2020
False
COVID-19 is no common cold
In a blog written for the UPENN Statesman, a University of Pennsylvania student newspaper, Dominic Gregorio, a university senior, expressed his frustration over the Philadelphia school’s decision to cancel all on-campus commencement events. Instead, the school will hold a virtual ceremony for live broadcast.
Larry Jameson, Dean of the Perelman School of Medicine, and six other leaders of large academic health systems urge national leadership to resist pressure to lift tough social restrictions intended to subdue the coronavirus outbreak. https://t.co/uR9B4K2aIk
— Penn (@Penn)
March 25, 2020
The decision was based on the recommendations of the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control “to protect the health of our graduates, their
families, alumni, and faculty and staff,” Amy Gutmann, the university
president said in a message March 16.
“I regret that this semester has been upended in so many ways. But in
our lifetime the world has not faced a challenge as unique and
complicated as the one that we currently confront,” she said.
Dominic Gregorio, a U. Penn senior, responded on March 18 in a UPENN Statesman article headlined, “Penn stole our senior year over the common cold.”
Penn stole our senior year over the common cold | The UPenn Statesman https://t.co/81PKl9GVX3
— Tressie McMillan Cottom (@tressiemcphd)
March 22, 2020
Gegorio accused the university of an “over-the-top” response to
coronavirus and of “robbing” the 2020 class of “the only senior year
we’ll ever have.”
“I wish the economy and the academy were not so easily incapacitated
by the common cold. I wish President Gutmann had heard the COVID-19
mortality rates in the U.S. were just above 0.1 percent, very similar to
the seasonal flu, and acted like it,” Gregorio wrote. “I don’t care,”
he added, about spreading infection.
Claims that COVID-19 is a common cold and that mortality rates are “just above 0.1 percent” are false.
The virus that causes COVID-19 has been identified as SARS-CoV-2, or severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. There is no vaccine or special treatment. After being discovered in December in China, COVID-19 by mid-March became a global pandemic – third in 100 years after the 1918-19 Spanish flu.
What coronavirus symptoms look like, day by day pic.twitter.com/k4IVK4QX2m
— Tech Insider (@techinsider)
March 18, 2020
The number
of people infected worldwide is approaching a half-million (451,355 as
of March 25), and the death toll is past 20,000 (20,499).
When describing
the COVID-19, doctors, scientists and epidemiologists worldwide say
they “have never seen anything like it,” and that it is “not like flu.”
This story by National Public Radio spells out many of the differences between COVID-19, the common cold and seasonal flu.
Here are
eight of them:
- COVID-19 is novel, or new. That means there’s no vaccine, and it’s unclear how it will manifest;
- This strain of coronavirus appears to infect two to 2.5 people
versus 1.3 with the flu, so coronavirus seems to be about twice as
contagious as the flu;
- Some 20% of coronavirus patients are in serious enough condition
to go to the hospital, 10 times the number who wind up in the hospital
because of the flu;
- Hospital stays for the coronavirus are twice as long as for the flu;
- About 8% of people get the flu every year. Some estimates are
25% to 50%, possibly up to 80%, could get the coronavirus without
drastic actions being taken by individuals, states and municipalities
and the federal government;
- The coronavirus could be 10 times deadlier than the flu — about
0.1% who get flu die. It’s estimated that about 1% of those who have
gotten coronavirus have died from it;
- There are treatments for the flu. There are no approved
treatments for the coronavirus, despite the president’s optimism for
certain drugs, which are untested for coronavirus to this point; and
- The flu tends to wane in warm weather, but it’s too soon to
count on that for coronavirus, which is thriving in warm, tropical
places.
Like Gregorio, hundreds of thousands of American students have expressed frustration about COVID-19’s impact on campus life.
Early news coverage of the COVID-19 disease said it appeared most
dangerous for older adults and people with chronic illnesses and
presented a low risk of death for younger, healthy people.
That has changed with the U.S. epidemic data.
“Today I have a message for young people: You are not invincible, this virus could put you in hospital for weeks or even kill you. Even if you don’t get sick, the choices you make about where you go could be the difference between life and death for someone else,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyes, director general of the World Health Organization warned on March 21.
By Polygraph