It can be as little as a cough or an elivated temprature to being as much as the common cold and in worst cases it can mimic influenza. Iowa has close to 2000 cases so far "reported" 45% have recovered and everyone who has passed has been over 61 years of age or older and in weak health. This is nothing more terrifying than the flu we deal with each and every year. I dont see the country shutting down because 65,000 people and counting has died from the flue since October 2019. This virus has been around a long long time. Most of us take dayquil, nyquil and asprin ect. and go to work same as any other day. How many times have you been sick and just never went to the doctor and self medicated? Or, Have you ever had a fever and not know it? Face it. Its BS.
While I definitely share your sentiment mostly because I'm in a low risk group, the facts are that COVID is killing people (mostly over 65 with underlying conditions as you said) in much greater #'s and and a much quicker pace than influenza (
here's a snapshot showing them in comparison). While overall Influenza is a bigger killer (killing 300,000 - 650,000) annually per year and about
24,000 - 60,000 in the US every year. The % of people killed by it is much smaller than COVID. Also Influenza is not under a microscope by the press and people that died in their home are not tested to inflate the #'s.
I'd much rather see a lockdown that was restricted to high risk groups, allowing younger people to continue working and keeping businesses afloat. Instead I see old people working in grocery stores, hardware stores, gas stations. My 77 yr old dad goes to work at lowes every day coming home to my 77 yr old mom (who's on oxygen). Meanwhile my low risk self is confined to being at home.
The media handling of this situation in which they almost never provide context has been absurd, the involvement of political battles determining behavior is unbelievable. Does a lockdown in which all the people that are normally scattered all over at different places in different times being forced to all be at the same places at the same time (grocery, hardware, walmart, gas stations, etc) Really improve things. Most important if we survive the virus but return to a world with a smashed economy and everyone out of work, out of money possibly watching our governments collapse due to lack of incoming tax revenue, on top of massive expenditures trying to stimulate some sort of spending in the masses. What kind of saved life are we all going to go back to?
I suppose there aren't any right answers, every response to this will have dire consequences and we won't know the full results for years to come. I'm pissed off, I'm frustrated, and overall I'm one of the lucky ones as both my wife and I still have our jobs (albeit work from home) Neither of us knows a single person even diagnosed with this virus let alone died from it. So I definitely hear your frustration. All we can do is sit back and watch this unravel and hope for the best.
PS: I'd avoid all news other than headlines pertaining to the government guidelines, go directly to the sites like
john hopkins and watch the #'s and trends (from global to state/county) instead of watching the media hyperfocus on stats out of context, find your local state info for more relevant info. Currently my county has under 300 cases for 550,000 people which is quite minor compared to most larger city's.
For some context here's a cool site called worldometer The folowing stats are global not USA
At time of viewing Deaths this year are over 17,000,000
Deaths by infections disease (influenza covid, and all other viruses) over 3,781,000
Deaths by covid this year just over
138,000
Deaths from influenza this year just over 141,000 so COVID is about to jump this.
Some perspective for everyone that has died of COVID
3.5 times as many people have died form HIV this year
489,000
17 times as many people have died from cancer this year
2,392,000
Over 5 times as many people have died from alcohol related deaths this year (and that's an essential service

)
728,000
2.4 times as many people have committed suicide this year
312,000
This minute is brought to you by googling