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Originally Posted by OLD BOY
Because if it’s positive, you have to isolate.
You don’t do that for flu, so why for omicron, which is similar?
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Well that's a good question - is there an argument for isolating for flu? There is a strong culture of work presenteeism in this country that you don't see in other countries which certainly has the potential for frankly unnecessary spread of a disease which does kill.
Here is a comparison between COVID and inflenza from the
BMJ
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that in the US there were 1.8 deaths from flu per 100 000 population between 1999 and 2019. The estimated death rate from covid was 217.54 per 100 000 in the US and 206.73 per 100 000 in the UK.
The global figure for the covid-19 death rate is estimated at 279 per 100 000 population.
In the UK the Health Foundation has articulated the difference in impact between flu and covid in terms of life years. “In a bad flu year on average around 30 000 people in the UK die from flu and pneumonia, with a loss of around 250 000 life years. This is a sixth of the life years lost to covid-19,” it noted.
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How many lives being saved is the limit to justify isolation programmes? 30,000 lives being lost in a bad flu year seems a hell of a lot. The Infection Fatality Rate for Omicron seems to be a bit up in the air at the moment with things slowly becoming clearer. What we have seems to be good news. I do feel a conversation needs to be had on what we as a society are willing to accept as an acceptable number of deaths.