Flu or coronavirus – which is scarier?
Gennady Onishchenko professionally commented on the main myths around COVID-19
In total, 1.35 million Russians have been ill with coronavirus during the pandemic. There was a lull in the summer, and in the autumn the number of new cases of infection began to grow again. But there are still people who do not believe in the existence of an epidemic or think that the virus is not so dangerous.
The Parliamentary Newspaper collected the most popular arguments of covid-dissidents and those who doubt the benefits of preventive measures and asked a well-known sanitary doctor, epidemiologist, doctor of medical sciences, first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Education and Science to comment on each of them Gennady Onishchenko.
"Masks don't save"
The essence of the doubt: the holes in the mask are larger than the size of the virus, and do not protect against it. The mask should be worn by those who are ill, so as not to spread the infection, healthy people do not need it. And in general, wearing masks is harmful to breathing and immunity.
– The mask plays an important role. It saves in a huge number of cases. The fact is that when a person talks, breathes, sneezes, coughs, small drops of saliva fly out. It is the mask that holds them on itself, thereby stopping the main amount of viral particles that an infectious person secretes. Therefore, the mask should be worn by both those who are not ill and those who feel unwell. Some – so as not to get sick, others – so as not to infect. Of course, it does not save one hundred percent, but we could not have the vast majority of infections if people followed simple, understandable and easy-to-follow rules: wear masks, observe hand hygiene, disinfect surfaces, keep a social distance to minimize the risk of infection.
If the mask is worn correctly, there is no danger in it. Like any means of protection, it requires care and compliance with the rules. The reusable mask needs to be washed and ironed. A disposable mask, which is made of non-woven fabric, lasts no more than two hours, and it cannot be used a second time. But if you throw it anywhere, it will really become dangerous. Therefore, you need to either put it in a bag, or throw it in the trash, where no one is guaranteed to rummage, and there the virus itself will die after some time.
"I've been sick before and I won't get sick again"
The essence of the doubt: the person has already been ill or thinks that he has been ill with COVID-19. Now he thinks he's immune.
– If a person has had a coronavirus, even asymptomatically, and in young people in more than 60 percent of cases it proceeds exactly this way, then there will be an immune response. But it is not yet clear how long this immunity lasts, representative scientific observations have not yet been received. Perhaps it will be really long-term immunity.
But sometimes it is not produced. For example, there is a recent case in the Netherlands when a woman who was 89 years old fell ill and died again. She had a malignant blood disease and secondary immunodeficiency (a violation of the immune system that develops against the background of the underlying disease. – Ed.). And when she got sick for the first time, she just didn't develop antibodies. This caused a recurrence of the disease. Immune depression can occur in cancer patients, in people with disorders of the endocrine system, primarily diabetes, with cardiac diseases.
"There is no epidemic at all"
The essence of the doubt: the epidemic is declared when a certain percentage of the sick from the entire population of the country is reached, and in Russia the number is "short".
– An epidemic is the level of morbidity of people. And with different infections – different epidemic thresholds. For example, even isolated cases of anthrax are already a first–order emergency. And the incidence of influenza is assessed differently. It all depends on the danger of infection, the intensity of the epidemic process, the contagiousness of the infection – how easily it is transmitted from an infected organism to a healthy one.
The incidence thresholds for coronavirus have not yet been calculated. But if we talk about the epidemic process of coronavirus, it is characterized by the following figures. In the world, on average, on October 13, the incidence rate is 488 people per 100 thousand population. They think so – not in percentages, but in the number of cases per one hundred thousand of the population. In some countries, the intensity of the process is many times greater. For example, in Peru, the incidence rate is 2579.9, that is, out of every hundred thousand inhabitants, two and a half thousand have already been ill or are at the stage of the disease. Then there are Chile, Brazil, the USA. In the United States, the intensity of the epidemic process is 2,350 cases per 100,000 population, by October 14, 7.8 million people had fallen ill. Then Argentina, Colombia, France and Russia are in the fifth ten. So there is an epidemic. And it is determined by the intensity of the manifestation of the disease.
In addition to the concept of "epidemic" there is the concept of "pandemic" – when the infection has spread in several countries. In this case, we can talk about a global pandemic, because the disease is registered in 188 countries out of a little more than two hundred on the planet. This does not mean that there is no morbidity in other countries, it's just that there is no healthcare there. There is no one even to diagnose. As a rule, these are small developing countries.
"There are more chances to die from the flu than from the coronavirus"
The essence of the doubt: mortality from other infections, from the same flu, is not lower, or even higher than from coronavirus, but such measures are not taken in connection with them.
– Apart from individual manifestations, such as swine flu in 2009, the mortality rate among those infected with coronavirus is higher than from influenza. The global average is about three percent. In the USA – 2.8 percent, in the UK – 2.75. That is, 2.75 percent of the seven million cases died. In Russia – 1.79 percent.
Flu is also a dangerous infection, pneumonia can develop from it. It is especially dangerous for those who have cancer, a weak heart. And if we compare the overall result, then the damage to all people from the flu is even higher than from the coronavirus, but only because the cumulative incidence is much greater. Every autumn and winter, 200 to 900 million people get sick with influenza in the world. Compared to these figures, those 38 million who have officially registered coronavirus are nothing. And at the same time, the mortality rate from COVID-19 is higher in the group of people over 70 years old.
In the case of the coronavirus, there is one more thing. He provoked an increased indirect mortality at the first stage, because hospitals did not provide planned medical care, did not perform planned operations. Let's say a cancer patient, when the time for chemo or radiotherapy came, was not taken to the hospital, and he died earlier than he could. Therefore, now in no case it is impossible to follow the path of total closure and prohibitions – this will worsen the situation, not improve it.
At the first stage, when everything was closed, it was impossible to do otherwise, because we didn't know anything about this coronavirus yet. Now we have a diagnosis, we have a vaccine. Now we need to act locally: a sick person has appeared in the team, close for quarantine, identify all contacts and treat them. But you can't close the whole country.
"People don't die from COVID-19, but from concomitant diseases"
The essence of the doubt: the main cause of death of infected people is not the impact of infection, but chronic diseases that they suffered from before.
– This interpretation is closer to the flu. It gives a strong intoxication. A person is sick for a week. But at the same time, the weakening of the body indirectly occurs, there may be complications on the heart, kidneys, lungs, and so on. The coronavirus sits on the lungs, and if severe pneumonia develops, a person dies, as a rule, from it. Therefore, in the case of COVID-19, the deaths are just more from the "covid" itself, and with the flu – from the complications that it causes.
"The reaction to infection is inadequate to its danger"
The essence of the doubt: no one, even the most dangerous infection, has caused such hysteria and whipping up a sense of danger. It's too much. Border closures and quarantine only increase hysteria and prevent the epidemic from surviving.
"That's partly true. We are obsessed with coronavirus today. Yes, this is a serious infection with possible complications, and there are serious risks, especially for the older generation. But we are faced with an information and terrorist attack that began with the escalation of terror in China. It is not necessary to introduce measures that were taken at the very beginning. Instead, you just need to wear masks and monitor hand hygiene. China today has a little more than 90 thousand cases per 1.5 billion population. Mainly due to the fact that people know and comply with all the requirements. And we know, but we don't observe.
"I'm young, nothing will happen to me"
The essence of the doubt: mostly elderly people suffer from a severe form of "covid", and young people, and especially children, carry the disease easily, or even asymptomatically. So, they don't have to defend themselves.
– If a young person has diabetes, and unfortunately many people have it, the danger for him is the same as for older people. Or if a person has cancer. Well, he is also a danger to others. Who gets sick more in schools? Teachers. In children, infection most often proceeds easily and asymptomatically, but teachers who become infected from children already have a greater percentage of manifest flow when temperature and severity appear. This is understandable, because they have already accumulated health problems. That is why they demand in schools that teachers and students over the age of 14 wear masks.
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