… SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t approach either of these.
But let’s take a broader look. In the US, every year 30-40,000 people die from the flu, an infection that we have a vaccine for. People just don’t get vaccinated. The worse epidemic we experienced in modern times was the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918 where nearly 100 million people are estimated to have died worldwide from the infection!
Like other coronaviruses, SARS-CoV2 is spread as droplets in the air when infected people sneeze and cough. It may also be spread when people make contact with contaminated surfaces. It is believed the virus can last on surfaces for as long as 9 days. While it’s good that the vast majority of infected people will recover, we are still not sure what are the strongest risk factors for death.
In general though, these infections have higher mortality in the very young, the elderly and people with chronic diseases, particularly lung diseases like asthma or COPD or diseases that weaken the immune system. One medical report I’ve reviewed suggest people with heart disease being at increased risk of mortality from the infection. While we do not have specific data on HIV infection increasing risk for SARS-CoV-2, HIV is a chronic disease affecting the immune system which can increase the risk for acquiring many infections and also increase risk of bad outcomes (e.g. death) from these infections.
To protect yourself, it’s important to keep your immune system as…