# How do I counter the the flu v COVID-19 argument? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [March 13, 2020, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427 "2020-03-13T18:15:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 23
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2020, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/23 "2020-03-13T22:36:13Z")
They way I’ve been explaining is that when it comes to the flu we know pretty much everything about it. We know how it spreads, we know how to treat it, we have a pretty good idea as to how many people will get it, be hospitalized by it and die from it in a given year and we have vaccines for it. We also know that, like clockwork, it’ll show up around October and disappear around March. We know all these things for the flu. We don’t know any (or most) of them for this. Also, my ‘fear’ is that when this all blows over, people are going to running around saying that it was a huge over reaction. We cancelled just about everything and for what? Every time someone calls it an over reaction, I’ve been trying to explain that if this all blows over without amounting to much that they shouldn’t think of this as an over reaction, instead they should consider that it didn’t amount to much _because_ of how we reacted. Also, maybe we should treat the flu like this. If everyone that had a symptom that could be considered flu like stayed home for X days or until cleared by a doc, maybe we could knock our flu numbers in half and cut a few months off the flu season. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427)._