You Might Get Sick – and That's Okay: Breaking Down the Coronavirus
The latest human coronavirus strain has been a huge deal ...for five minutes. Before that there was H1N1, before that Bird Flu, and if you go far enough back you get lovely pandemics like the Spanish Flu, Justinian’s Plague, and that age-old boogieman the Black Death.
The point is, while coronavirus is sopping up the headlines, slamming Corona beer sales, and launching Pharmaceutical and Clorox stocks into the stratosphere, at the end of the day the question has to be asked ...is all of this hype really warranted?
Gaining Perspective on the Coronavirus
While we could formulate shallowly thought out opinions all day long and then toss them into the overall chaos, we thought it would be worth utilizing a novel approach to gain some perspective: using the facts.
Let’s take a few important factors into consideration when it comes to historicity, symptoms, and response and consider how they should impact each individual’s reaction to the coronavirus.
A Brief History of Pandemics
While most major viruses ebb and flow throughout different points in history, there are a few major moments that are worth calling out to create some comparison to COVID-19 (this particular strain of coronavirus).
For instance, remember the Avian Influenza? We already mentioned it in the intro, just under a different moniker: Bird Flu. While this one has been creeping around humanity for a while now, the number of cases for the particularly deadly strain that has mostly been around for the 21st-century has remained in the hundreds.
However, while the number of cases may be low, it doesn’t change the fact that Bird Flu has had a staggering death rate of 60%. Sixty percent ...just let that sink in for a second. That’s Bubonic Plague kind of stuff. You could literally say that a majority of the cases ended in death.
What about Swine flu? The barely swine-related H1N1 influenza was a bit more widespread, hitting roughly 60.8 million people in the U.S. alone in the span of a year from 2009 to 2010. While tons of people got this one, though, only 12,469 deaths were recorded. Correct our math if we’re off on this, but that comes to just over a .02% death rate. While no one’s arguing that each death is a tragedy, on a global or even a national scale there’s no doubt that once the dust settled it was clear that more intense epidemics were possible.
Just for fun, let’s take a quick trip further back in time for a moment to consider the effects of some of the older pandemics that have left their imprint on history. Here are the death tolls for three other major plagues that we’ve already mentioned:
Justinian’s Plague: This one started in the 6th century, showing up on the outer edges of the Byzantine Empire around 541 A.D. From there it kept on churning through humanity for an uncomfortable 225 years. During these two centuries the body count mounted until it got into the millions.
The Black Death: The Black Death is a benchmark pandemic, historically speaking. How does that one look death-wise, though? At its worst, the sickness persisted for decades, so once again, we’re talking about adding up years of data here. That said, it’s estimated that the group of diseases referred to as “the Black Death” ultimately claimed 25 million lives in Europe alone during its worst outbreaks. On top of that, the mortality rate, while it varied depending on the particular sickness in question, ranged in untreated victims between 40 and 100 percent.
Spanish Flu: While older plagues are difficult to judge statistically, one historical pandemic that’s a bit easier to grasp is the Spanish Flu. The virus plagued the globe for a single year from 1918 to 1919 ...and took out an estimated 25 to 50 million victims. And this one’s in the age of sanitation and early modern medicine, folks.
While all of these are estimates — some extremely so — it certainly helps to paint a pretty bleak picture of the infamous effects of past sicknesses on humanity.
Why Coronavirus is a different kind of pandemic
Okay, so what’s the point of all of these stats and figures — besides getting us all really depressed and all?
Well, in contrast, when you size up what we know about the coronavirus so far, a few interesting things come to light. First off, this one is nearly impossible to contain. At this point, many people have tested positive for the sickness before they ever had any symptoms — which, yeah, how to put a lid on that?
And yet, so far, coronavirus has a death rate of around 3.4% — although even then, once the full extent of the cases are known even this fairly low number (compared to those mentioned above) will likely drop significantly.
Don’t get us wrong here. Is it serious? Absolutely. Pandemically significant? Possibly. Deadly compared to past diseases, though? Hardly.
While the narrative can clearly change in the future, as far as it’s progressed so far, the coronavirus is far less than deadly strains like SARs, the bird flu viruses, or countless older plagues. It’s simply much higher than the comparatively small death rate from things like the seasonal flu, which tends to hover around 0.1%.
The Wider Spread of Coronavirus
At this point, it’s estimated that between 40 and 70 percent of the global population could end up contracting the coronavirus. While this may invoke images of the barren landscapes from I am Legend or The Walking Dead though, what it really means is that more likely than not, most of us are going to contract the disease at some point — even if we don’t realize it — and many of us will likely be no worse for the wear.
As a clear clarification, this isn’t meant to cast a casual or irresponsible shadow on the genuine threats that the coronavirus does pose. It’s certainly a nasty sickness with many uncomfortable symptoms and many, many people have lost their lives to it already. It has also clearly impacted nearly everyone through things like economic reverberations, quarantines, and so on.
However, it’s worth pointing out that, perhaps the largest impact that the coronavirus has had thus far has come from the simple fact that it’s infected over seven billion people with paralyzing fear.
While this fear is in many ways a reasonable, rational response, in many other ways, it feels a bit like it’s been blown out of proportion. Treating a worldwide pandemic with a low mortality rate as if it is both highly deadly and must be contained can ultimately do more harm than good by creating far more panic than is necessary.
Facing the Coronavirus Fears
Instead of embracing fear, it’s important for humans everywhere to stay informed and up to date on the actual, real-life dangers of the coronavirus as just another respectably dangerous virus in a long list of deadly diseases that are nothing new to our survival.
If you’re struggling with coronavirus fears, we completely understand. However, our goal with this article, and as a prepper site, in general, is to help you gain a healthy perspective of the genuine threat that pandemics can present — and to ensure that you’re ready to handle them, regardless of the particular scale on which they are manifesting.
If you’re interested in more info, check out our coronavirus survival guide to help you understand, prevent, and react to the spread of this sickness in your own personal life.