Level 5
H1N1 was far more dangerous to young people, neonates, and pregnant people - even without comorbidities.
though certainly comorbidities made people at higher risk with H1N1 also.
On the other hand, while Swine Flu was pretty easily transmitted, this Coronavirus is even more so. Coronavirus is also. Ore dangerous to the elderly.
There were 25k Americans who died specifically from H1N1 before Obama reluctantly declared a state of emergency. The health community had been asking for it, but it was at the time of Obamacare, and I suspect his people may have thought it was politically motivated (it was not).
In those days, the media was not tracking every death breathlessly, and we counted deaths only when there was a positive test confirmation and without the comorbidities that could otherwise account for the deaths.
In Obama’s defense, he didn’t want to overreact. Trump had the same concern without the luxury of a supportive media (in fact, the opposite - a media that intentionally fomented fear).
Trump has done fairly well imo. There was no book for this. His PPE supplies were drained, his FDA bureaucracy was overgrown, he faced opposition to his travel bans, and he had to do it in an election year. Despite all of this and more, our actual numbers look pretty good.
I have not addressed the false reporting issue either which has most certainly occurred for political reasons, and insurance billing reasons in an age where data is now farmed as meta data from EMR’s and a diagnosis code for “nonspecific corona infection” exists and pays 20% more and doesn’t require lab confirmation of COVID.
