I'm curious, for anyone who happens to have knowledge of this, how the current numbers stand against normal items (flu, cold, pneumonia, etc.) we've lived/dealt with annually over the years without any disruption or national emergency? In a vacuum, you see some people dying and in hospital, and you think wow that sucks and we need to end this problem. But in reality, the numbers are so low percentage wise to the population. There are many things (cancer, heart attack, blood clots, drunk drivers, pain killers/drugs, etc.) that kill and/or hospitalize in higher numbers each year than the current numbers for Covid. Granted, it could go back up like it was over the winter. But let's say it stays around but at the current level. Am i right in thinking it's a manageable illness? In a perfect world we eradicate it completely; but if we do not, is it the THAT BAD at the current level? I'm not meaning this is a koo-koo, conspiracy internet guy way -- but just asking in general to someone who really knows the health impact to society as compared to other items that we had pre-CV19 and lived our lives without freaking out daily accordingly with such risks.
Well a few points.
A bad flu season will be about 50k deaths like in 2015. Usually hangs out in the 30k range in a normal year. Covid was about 500k.
Pneumonia depends on the type. Aspiration Pneumonia is when somebody chokes on food and I couldn't really count those because those are human caused.
Community Acquired Pneumonia happens and is a big killer but the focus with C19 is different because it leads to ARDS which is a whole syndrome which basically blows the lungs out the back door and fills them up with fluid, makes them fibrotic so they don't work well after. A regular pneumonia is usually treated with antibiotics if bacterial in nature and most often does not go down the same path.
Going into the management Side of things....
A lot has to do with all the precautions we take. Gowning up and down every time we go in the room, N95, mask, goggles and shield if they are intubated. If they are not I wear a mask plus a PAPR which is respirator. All the PPE costs money and time so we have to limit the numbers of patients the staff can take. Then you need more staffing to turn and prone the patient usually takes 3 to 4 people to do. When we run dialysis, these patients become 1:1 ratio while in a normal world I can take 2 pneumonias who are both intubated and sedated prior they are stable and not in active sepsis. But I would have resources to help.
With Covid, it's different because it takes up a lot of resources and staff to manage that 1 patient and they really can't be doubled in the ICU unless they are not intubated because when they drop, they drop fast and hard and you need to be in the room so it's not feasible nor safe to be doubling these patients without risk of harming the patient.
With normal flu, the PPE is just a simple mask and a shield but since COVID is treated as airborne in the hospital, it's a different type of set of precaution and work to get them up. I've had covid patients for over a month while a flu or a regular pneumonia will be much much faster than that.
In a nutshell, it's the time, resources and staffing and the effects long term are more significant. We are now getting post C19 patients or Long Covid and they are having some obvious struggles due to long term respiratory instability as well as cardiac/overall reconditioning. They also take up hospital beds for a longer period of time.