I got to thinking today about his Coronavirus compares to SARS and it strikes me how different things are now compared to then.
In 2003 with SARS there was a real and present danger. If you got SARS you were very seriously ill, highly contagious and at a high risk of dying no matter who you were or how healthy you were. There were travel bans, hospitals were sealed and if you got infected there was no debate on just how quarantined you were.
The WHO put in place travel bans and life grounded to a halt in affected cities.
There was no "self isolation", if you got sick you were forcibly quarantined and everyone you may have came in contact with was too. You could not walk into a hospital without submitting to an inspection.
Now in 2020, the number of infected people is higher but the deaths are lower. People are "self isolating", nobody is issuing a travel ban and nobody is being quarantined.
I lived through SARS, I was in and out of hospitals for appointments during that time in Toronto but they were stricter then than they are now even though this is made out to be an even bigger and more serious outbreak.
I cannot fathom why people are making such a big deal out of Coronavirus when it is nothing more than a potent cold. SARS was much worse and yet everyone seems to think that Coronavirus is akin to the plague.
Yes more people are affected now compared to SARS but the mortality rate as a percentage of those affected is much lower.
Just because there are more people infected does not mean it is more serious. When the death rates reach 10% then we have a problem but for now, the death rate is a third of what it was during SARS and yet we are treating this as a much more serious outbreak.