It really ticks me off that people are like "so it's just the flu." "The flu" doesn't leave otherwise healthy adults in critical condition. It's shitty, but when people try to downplay this I find myself hoping they catch it.
Yep, at work today someone was saying that since it "only" has a 2% death rate then none of us need to worry. I then waved my hand around the room and pointed out that we have more than 50 people just in this room, it's a call center, which are
guaranteed respiratory disease hubs, and that a 2% death rate would mean 1-2 of the people in this room would be likely to die if there's an outbreak. We have some older workers as well as younger ones.
Yes, it's just like the flu, except you're 40 times more likely to require hospitalization, and 20 times more likely to die. So "only 20 times worse than the flu, how bad could that be?" Most people mean "a cold" when they say "the flu". They don't realize how bad the actual "flu" is. Then imagine 20 times worse than that, and that's Covid-19.
BTW Australia may become responsible for killing Tom Hanks: he's here shooting a movie, and confirmed to have the virus.
I mentioned the Tom Hanks thing to another new guy at work, and he sat for a second and then said he doesn't believe it because it's "fake news". Clearly this guy isn't the sharpest tack in the box. Sure, there's stuff you need to take with a grain of salt in the news, but that's
just not how it works. Decided to put this guy in the "don't bother to discuss stuff with" category because he has clear reality comprehension issues.