Richard Hatchett: "This is the most frightening disease I've ever encountered in my career."

[Dennis Donovan]

Link to tweet

Channel 4 News ✔@Channel4News

"This is the most frightening disease I've ever encountered in my career."

Richard Hatchett, the doctor leading efforts to find a vaccine for coronavirus, says it is much more lethal than normal flu.

Embedded video

1:24 PM - Mar 6, 2020

Ted Lieu retweeted this so

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Ebola is more lethal, but less communicable. So for this to be the

most terrifying....

[AllTooEasy]

11. A black hole is more "lethal" than any virus, but less terrifying because...

...you are far less likely to be anywhere near a black hole anytime soon.

As far as we can tell

The Coronavirus’ combination of lethality and contagiousness makes it more “frightening” than Ebola.

[Ferrets are Cool]

2. Did your career begin after the aids/HIV era?

Hyperbole much?

[USALiberal]

3. The infectious he mentioned is the reason why. You could not catch HIV easily. nt

[Ferrets are Cool]

4. I was just going by what the headline said

if he clarified it in the video, I retract my retort.

[elias7]

7. Well, are you going to watch the video or just treat the headline like a meme you don't agree with?

Why not watch the vid, get some context, and then if you realize your response was a little hasty, actually retract your post?

[defacto7]

5. None whatsoever. He's being kind.

He's saying exactly what we have known for years about Ebola, HIV, SARS and MERS then he compares it to SARS-CoV2.

[volstork]

8. HIV is not airborne.

There is NOTHING hyperbolic in his statement. His fear is the ease of communicability.

[RAB910]

6. I have spent 17 years preparing for a major pandemic

we always planned and hoped that we would have weapons to fight it (like treatment or vaccine)

This is literally the worse case scenerio

[iluvtennis]

9. Other DU comments are here at this link

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213055122

[Dennis Donovan]

12. I kicked/rec'd it

I hope more people watch this video.

[yaesu]

10. and I will never forgive the idiots who voted in the idiot who will do nothing as thousands, maybe

millions of Americans die in the coming months, There are 2 things I do know for sure, our economy will collapse and all faith in government will collapse.

[KentuckyWoman]

13. 34 Million Americans have had the everyday flu this year and 20000 have died.

That's a fatality rate of 0.07%

Covid 19 has a fatality rate so far, of 4% and seems to be spreading at least as fast as the regular everyday flu.

If 34 Million Americans get Covid 19 - at 4% fatality rate - 1,360,000 Americans will die. - vs 20000 for regular flu. Add in all the people who survive but will need hospital care. Add in the need for cold and flu products needed to treat at home for people sick of milder symptoms.

This is the reason for the panic. Our medical system isn't set up to handle this. Add on top of that nearly all the disposables used in hospitals are made in China. If the Chinese need them, do you think we'll get our shipments?

[TheRickles]

14. 1/10 of all Americans got the flu? I doubt it. n/t

[KentuckyWoman]

16. Ahem

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm

[TheRickles]

22. Interesting, but...

Thanks for the link. However, this reports flu-like illnesses - where symptoms match the flu but definitive diagnostic blood tests are not done. It's a very high number, to be sure, though many/most could actually be bad colds. The data isn't clear enough to say for sure, because the flu is not a reportable illness in the US. The wide range of possible cases (almost 50%) shows how iffy these stats are.

[KentuckyWoman]

23. Yeah, the CDC doesn't know it's own business.

Enjoy your stay.

[dflprincess]

18. About 4% of confirmed cases

Last edited Sat Mar 7, 2020, 03:38 PM - Edit history (1)

We have no idea how many people have had milder cases that they never sought medical help for or how many who were misdiagnosed and survived.

[KentuckyWoman]

20. My way of thinking...

The milder cases are important only in so far as how far and fast Covid 19 is moving in and out of the local population at any given moment. It's the rate at which people need advanced medical care, or die that I think is more critical.

With a fatality rate of 8-10 times that of the regular flu, the risk to a breakdown of the medical care system and medical workers is of concern. What happens when ICU is so full of Covid patients they can't handle a heart attack patient? It's the domino effect.

That's why they are hammering us with new about Covid. If they can get us to protect ourselves, then it slows the spread - gives the medical delivery system the ability to deal with this in a better flow instead of being bombed with patients.

This is just my own take on it... Just rolling around all the info out there in my head...

Doing everything we can to not get sick no only protects us personally but also keeps us from being a transmitter even if we don't get sick.

[sop]

15. We need to rename this virus "Covfefe-19"

You know, because everything Trump touches dies.

[johnthewoodworker]

19. Nicely done.

[gibraltar72]

17. Does he have a hunch??

[paleotn]

21. Yes, it appears more lethal than seasonal flu...

But the most frightening disease he's ever encountered? Apparently, he doesn't get out much. CDC and USAMRID have a whole cornucopia of pathogens far more lethal.