April 22, 2020

VIDEO: Why Coronavirus (COVID19) is not like the Flu, and how you can save lives staying home.

So, you are young or annoyed about wearing a face mask in public places like stores and airplanes? Do you think this pandemic is no different than the common flu? Well, you are wrong and with two simple numbers, I can show you how YOU can be responsible for either infecting and killing several fellow humans or help spare them by breaking the chain.  These numbers are 1.4 and 3.  They are tiny numbers, but they explain why COVID19 is causing many of our most vulnerable citizens to lose their lives in ICUs all around the United States and the world. Mostly in the United States unfortunately where many people are refusing to help protect others. 


Those numbers are simple. 1.4 is the number of persons that will be infected on average by one person with the regular flu. That is, if I had the flu and was not staying at home, I will make pass the flu virus to an average of 1.4 persons. For COVID19 this number is at least an average of 3 persons. If you or I have COVID19, then we will on average make 3 other people sick. 

The scary part comes in when you think about the persons downstream of us. Those who we infect will go on to infect the same average number of people and so on. I have illustrated this for you in this YouTube video below, for both hearing and hearing-impaired persons. Keep in mind that we also have a vaccine for the flu and the flu virus generally does not impact the lungs as strongly as COVID19 can. 

So how many people do you think we can infect downstream from the flu compared to COVID19 if we look ahead TEN more passes of transmission.  How do they compare? You will be shocked by the numbers. Watch this video in YouTube, then show this to someone you love, and STAY HOME. For the Flu, the infections downstream from you would be just 29 people. But, it is a very large number when you infect on average 3 people. Its a scary big number. Do you know how to do the maths? Watch my video below and I will show you. 

The math will show you how many people you may harm if you do not social distance. Good news though. The very same math also shows you how many YOU can prevent from being harmed when you stay at home, and when you distance and wear those masks. :) YOU are powerful, you can be a SUPER person. 



(First posted 3/27/2020, updated 4/22/2020 Ken Mitton)

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