A big cough, body aches, fever … despite symptoms that may look similar, we can not say that the disease caused by the coronavirus is nothing other than a common flu: it seems more deadly , its severe forms can affect broader categories of patients and there is no vaccine, experts say.
Coronavirus is more deadly than flu
If we relate the number of deaths worldwide to the total number of officially registered cases, the disease caused by coronavirus kills around 3.5% of diagnosed patients, with disparities depending on the country. It’s more than the flu who she, kills “1 in 1,000 infected patients” (0.1%), according to estimates from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
But the supposed death rate from coronavirus must be taken with big tweezers, as it is not known how many people have actually been infected. Since many patients seem to develop few, if any, symptoms, their number is likely to be greater than the cases detected, which would therefore decrease this rate.
“There are still big unknowns about the fatality rate of Covid-19, and it probably varies depending on the quality of health systems. That being said, it hovers around 2% on average, is around 20 times more than for seasonal flu viruses currently circulating, “recently said Professor François Balloux of University College London.
More serious forms
Beyond mere mortality figures, experts fear that the severe forms of Covid-19 can reach more patients than flu, even if in both cases age and the presence of other diseases (cardiac, respiratory, etc.) are risk factors.
The Covid-19 “is not a grippette, he can give severe forms in people not so old that that “, underlines number 2 of the French Ministry of Health, Jérôme Salomon.
The most comprehensive analysis to date, of 45,000 confirmed cases in China, shows that mortality increases markedly with age (14.8% in people over 80 compared to 0.4% in their forties).
“This can also happen to relatively young people who do not have chronic pathologies” – Jérôme Salomon
“It is true that the older we are, the more fragile we are, the more we are exposed to serious forms but this can also happen to relatively young people who do not have chronic pathologies”, continues Professor Salomon.
Covid-19 more contagious than the flu
Specialists seem to agree that each Covid-19 patient infects between two and three people if no action is taken to combat the epidemic (this is called the “basic reproduction rate” of the disease, or R0). The Covid-19 is therefore more contagious than influenza, for which this rate is estimated at 1.3. But the coronavirus is for example much less contagious than measles, for which the rate is estimated at more than 12, that is to say that a patient contaminates more than 12 other people. It is also less contagious than mumps, the rate of which is estimated between 4 and 7.
No vaccine, no treatment
“We have known the flu virus for 100 years, we are studying it very well. Here we are really on a new virus, which certainly looks like the flu in terms of symptoms (we have a headache, everywhere , we have a fever) but there are big differences “, notes Jérôme Salomon. One of the differences is that“we are not protected” against the Covid-19, he adds: there is “no vaccines, no treatment” and humans are not naturally immune to this new virus, which their body has never encountered before. Management of the new disease therefore consists in treating the symptoms. However, some patients are given antivirals or others experimental treatments, whose effectiveness is being evaluated.
On the vaccine side, despite ongoing research and announcement effects in a competition with significant economic challenges, nothing will be ready for long months. And even if we had a vaccine, it would still be necessary that it be accepted by the population, in a context of growing distrust of vaccination. World health authorities regularly deplore the insufficient number of people vaccinated against influenza (whose effectiveness varies each year according to the type of influenza virus circulating).
The same gestures to protect yourself
Influenza and Covid-19 viruses have at least one thing in common: on an individual scale, we can fight their spread in the same way. That’s what we call barrier measures : avoid shaking hands and kissing, wash your hands frequently, cough or sneeze in the crook of your elbow or in a disposable handkerchief, wear a mask if you are sick … are often too little respected, while they are effective against various winter infections (flu, colds, gastro, bronchitis, bronchiolitis …).
“Did you know that 2 out of 10 people do not wash their hands systematically after going to the toilet? And that only 42% of people cover their mouths with an elbow or a tissue when they cough or sneeze?”, noted the French Ministry of Health 2 years ago to justify a campaign called “Winter without virus”.
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