We read epidemiology reports so you don’t have to…

There’s a lot of information on Covid-19 that doesn’t seem to get much play in the news so, in case you are not yet corona-ed out, a few notes on what the experts are talking about between themselves.

  1. Stock up on Tylenol (acetominophen, aka paracetamol in Europe). It’s the best thing to reduce fever, which might last for two weeks. Evidence indicates that anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen, aspirin and steroid-based medications have an adverse effect on your immune system.
  2. Men get it worse – they seem to be more susceptible to infection and the effects are more severe (statistics from China suggest male mortality might be as much as 2x that for women);
  3. We have been told that the virus is more dangerous for older people, but by how much? Data is still being gathered but the best analysis so far is from a report published by Imperial College in London earlier this week. See the table below. Read the full report here.
  4. The most common symptoms are fever (88%) and dry cough (68%). Exhaustion (38%), expectoration of mucus when coughing (33%), shortness of breath (18%), sore throat (14%), headaches (14%), muscle aches (14%), chills (11%) are also common. Running nose is not a symptom of Covid and most people don’t suffer stuffy nose either.

Stay safe out there, folks.