How we learn from the past
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The world is facing something that is unreal, strange, and scary. But humans have a way to prevail in every adverse situation. Vivaldi CEO Jon von Tetzchner shares an intriguing piece of family history from his home country Iceland.
Click here to see the full blog post
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What a choice... Wether is much better in Norway. And they don´t have a crazy President! ^^
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Auch die normale Grippe tötet jährlich mehr als 600.000 Personen, ohne das man solche Massnahmen ergreift wie jetzt, obwohl sie noch nötiger wären als mit dem COVID.
Die Hysterie hat schlimmere Folgen als dieser Virus, der in den allermeisten Fällen nur mit leichten und sogar ohne jedwedigen Symptomen abläuft.
Ein klarer Kopf und die nötigen Higiene- und Vorsichtsmassnahmen aus Rücksicht auf andere Personen und das war's. -
Eiköhän käytetä englantia kielenä?
tr: Isn't English used as a language?
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People in health care professions have it the hardest as they have to interact and help the people who have gotten sick possibly putting themselves at risk for infection which could put others at risk. The medical field has some of the strictest hand washing and other cleaning but that only works if people follow them.
Technology is very cool way to stay connected. A few years ago I used one of the video chatting apps for my family to meet some relatives living in another part of the country. -
Thanks for that very interesting story from the 1918 flu pandemic. We really need to stop calling it "Spanish Flu" though, as that is a total misunderstanding caused by it being reported by Spanish newspapers first, as news in countries involved in WW1 were under censorship at the time and wouldn't report on the first outbreaks.
The good doctor and his wife seems like a very modern and progressive couple in the pictures! I can only understand a little Icelandic but it's a beautiful love song there on the center picture
As for our current situation - I'm still not decided whether I think the measures are necessary or an overreaction caused by the constant bombardment of scaremongering from the media. As pointed out above, over half a million die each year from regular flu, in addition to the millions killed by malaria, tuberculosis, diarrhoea from polluted water etc... But these are poor people diseases and who wants to worry about those people, right?
One thing though, at least it's been good for the environment...
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@Pathduck We should also stop calling Covid-19 the Coronavirus, because that is a generic name for several different viruses.
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@Pesala , the name Coronavirus (COVID) is generic, followed by a number is a specific strain, strain 19 is the current one.
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@finneko said in How we learn from the past:
Eiköhän käytetä englantia kielenä?
tr: Isn't English used as a language?
Sorry
The normal flu also kills more than 600,000 people annually, without taking measures like now, although they would be even more necessary than with the COVID.
The hysteria has worse consequences than this virus, which in the vast majority of cases runs only with mild and even without any symptoms.
A clear head and the necessary higiene and precautionary measures out of consideration for other people and that's it. -
@catweazle: Interestingly this was the original response to the Spanish flu in Iceland as well. Partly because it had been there before without making much damage. However, it changed and it made a lot of damage killing somewhere between 20 and 50 million people.
Likely it is better to do things early, rather than wait. Most of those waiting have had to do even more later. I am not saying that every action taken by every government is prudent and right. I do not have the knowledge, but I do believe it is important to stop this virus.
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@jon , of course, this measures in this case are undoubtedly necessary, I just ask why it is not done in much more serious epidemics as well.
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@Catweazle I think in the case of seasonal flu it is because you can get vaccinated, and when there is that kind of immunity, isolation is not useful.
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@LonM said in How we learn from the past:
@Catweazle I think in the case of seasonal flu it is because you can get vaccinated, and when there is that kind of immunity, isolation is not useful.
Yes, but as I said before, even so, the normal flu claims 100 times more lives than COVID 19 and it would therefore be logical to act similarly.
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@harrygrey thanks for this great translation. I have copied and published here as well: https://de.vivaldi.net/was-lernen-wir-von-der-vergangenheit/
Again thank you -
@catweazle: I am no expert on flu. I know a lot of people take flu shots. That being said, it is still early days for COVID 19 and claiming it claims 100 times less lives than flu is a dangerous comparison. The flu has a death rate of 0,1%, which is clearly high. This virus seems to have a death rate much higher than that, more than 10X. There is also the risk of the the virus mutating, which it already has. There are two major strands already. I would urge caution on this matter and not belittle the consequences. Hopefully we will manage to stop it early and not have it rebound, like the Spanish flu did.
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@catweazle: Lethality rate is key. For seasonal flu it is .1%. For COVID-19 it so far appears to be between 1% and 2%, ten to twenty times as lethal.
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However, precautions are important and we will need for simple solidarity, not only for people in the risk group (Older people with a pulmonary and coronary history), but also thinking about the health personnel who have to work with scarce personnel and material, due to the large influx of people and lack Medical supplies.
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@lonm: Unfortunately there are a great many of us that cannot receive a flu vaccine.
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The SARS outbreak of 2003-04 had an greater than 15% death rate were I was located. I had to to work each day. I did what I had to do and lived my life as best I could. Will do the same for this outbreak. I do not (cannot) go out much so that is a blessing. But panic and hoarding seems much worse.
SARS was also part of the COVID strain (SARS COV-2) though from a different source I believe.
We did learn a lot from SARS, let us hope we have not forgotten what we learned.
@jon Many Thanks for that historical information. Without this platform we'd never have known. -
Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg is a german physician, virologist, pulmologist and Health Policy Adviser. He is an Honorary Member of the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe (PACE)