‘Covid-19 Closest To Influenza Outbreak In 1918'

‘Covid-19 closest to influenza outbreak in 1918'

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Q How is COVID 19 outbreak different from H1N1 pandemic, both epidemiologically and in terms of our responses?

Dr Kang: COVID19 spreads at least as fast as H1N1, but causes greater mortality. At this moment, we estimate that of 100 people infected, one may die. The original estimate was 3 out of 100, but as we understand more about how many are infected, the rate of mortality may go down further. A lot depends on the quality of healthcare. So some countries like Germany are seeing low mortality. In seasonal influenza, which is what H1N1 has become, the mortality is 1 in 1,000 infected or less.

Dr Jameel: There are two ways to compare COVID-19 with swine flu. One is severity i.e. how many confirmed cases died. The other is transmission rate or R 0 (R naught), which tells how many persons on average can be infected by someone already infected. In the 2009 swine flu pandemic, every country reported cases. WHO estimated that 11-21%of the world population, i.e. 700 million to 1.4 billion people were infected with an estimated 1,50,000 to 5,75,000 deaths, a fatality rate of about 0.02%.

As there is no COVID-19 population screening test yet, we don’t yet know how many people are infected. What we do know is that by today there are over 10,51,635 confirmed cases and 56,985 deaths reported from 208 countries. But, one must also understand that this is not the same as population fatality rate. Public health experts estimate that COVID-19 will eventually have a mortality rate of about 0.5%, i.e. about 20 to 25 times higher than swine flu. The R 0 for swine flu was estimated to be 1.75; that for COVID-19 is estimated to be 2-2.5. When comparing the two most recent pandemics, it appears that COVID-19 is more severe and transmissible than swine flu.

Q How is SARS CoV 2 different from other corona viruses?