KISS's PAUL STANLEY On Coronavirus Pandemic: 'This Is NOT Another Flu'

KISS frontman Paul Stanley has taken issue with people who compare the novel coronavirus epidemic to the seasonal flu, a comparison that public health experts and doctors have said for weeks minimizes the danger posed by the coronavirus spreading across the globe.

Earlier today (Saturday, March 21),Stanley took to his Twitter to write: "NO People... This is NOT another flu. EVERYONE who has minimized the extent, ferocity and contagiousness of Covid-19 has one by one been proven WRONG. The longer you wait to take control the bigger the risk to you and more importantly the people who are trying to control this."

In a separate tweet, Paul shared a ProPublica article in which a medical worker describes terrifying lung failure from COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, even in his young patients. Stanley wrote: "READ THIS."

Less than a week ago, Stanley urged his fans to significantly curb their social activity in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus and help the economy cope. He tweeted at the time: "We are about to see illness, deaths and an overwhelmed hospital system never seen in our lifetime. Businesses are closing. This is NOT an opportunity for get-togethers or parties. SOCIAL DISTANCING IS THE MINIMUM. STAY HOME."

The fatality rate of the new coronavirus is believed to about 1 percent. "It's about ten times more lethal than the seasonal flu," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes Of Allergy And Infectious Disease, said in congressional testimony on March 11.

So far, COVID-19 has killed around 12,700 people worldwide and around 285 in the U.S.

U.S. officials have repeatedly urged Americans to heed what federal, state and local officials are asking of them in order to curtail the spread and dampen the impact of the virus on the population.

California recently estimated that more than half of the state — 25.5 million people — will get the new coronavirus over the next eight weeks.

The Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (CDC) put its worst-case scenario at 1.7 million COVID-19 deaths in America.