>>42992906Former bioinformaticist here (ignore redditspacing because it's more concise):
No, it's not like the flu, it's more like SARS. Even in younger people, the mortality rate is slightly worse than the regular flu. In fact, the mortality rate varies wildly between each country for a multitude of reasons. The main problem IS the rate of infection, it's spreading faster than the flu and seems to be infecting everyone. Even people with a seasonal flu vaccine can get the flu normally, but it still doesn't spread like this virus. Additionally, the flu produces upper respiratory illness like a cough, sniffles, sore throat, etc. This produces lower respitory illness, which means you can have a mild dry cough and then all of a sudden fall into severe pneumonia.
Another concern is hospitals. If hospitals fill up with people, as every expert is predicting due to the high rate of infection, we're looking at a very grave mortality rate. This doesn't even factor in the people who are fighting other ailments and won't be able to get treatment due to all the focus going into SARS-CoV-2.
There's a ton of other factors going into this like smokers with a higher ace2 receptor count, but I'd rather not write an essay. Basically, the flu isn't a great comparison. SARS is the better comparison.
