COVID-19 is becoming more like the flu and, as such, no longer requires its own virus-specific health rules, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday alongside the release of a unified “respiratory virus guide.”
In a lengthy background document, the agency laid out its rationale for consolidating COVID-19 guidance into general guidance for respiratory viruses—including influenza, RSV, adenoviruses, rhinoviruses, enteroviruses, and others, though specifically not measles. The agency also noted the guidance does not apply to health care settings and outbreak scenarios.
“COVID-19 remains an important public health threat, but it is no longer the emergency that it once was, and its health impacts increasingly resemble those of other respiratory viral illnesses, including influenza and RSV,” the agency wrote.
The most notable change in the new guidance is the previously reported decision to no longer recommend a minimum five-day isolation period for those infected with the pandemic coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Instead, the new isolation guidance is based on symptoms, which matches long-standing isolation guidance for other respiratory viruses, including influenza.
Yes, the actual rate of infection is probably higher than the official numbers because of underreporting, but if the goal is to compare COVID to the flu, this hardly matters, because the flu rate is even more underreported. Factor that in, and it just further reinforces the fact that COVID-19 was and is a far more serious illness than influenza, even in an especially bad flu season (peak annual death toll of 60k).
COVID has had an average annual death toll of ~300k since the pandemic began.
Yeah I’ve had it 4 or 5 times. Like I said, if everyone gets the fucking flu, well…I’m not even a statistic neither are most had it.