Tuesday, April 28, 2020

comparing flu deaths to covid deaths

I am seeing claims that Covid19 deaths exceed flu deaths.  https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html shows 61,000 flu deaths 


https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html 53,922 

3 comments:

  1. I am seeing claims that Covid19 deaths exceed flu deaths. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html shows 61,000 flu deaths.

    Go to the linked CDC page. Scroll down to "Preliminary cumulative estimates of flu cases, medical visits and hospitalizations for the 2019-2020 season." Click that link. The 2019-2020 page says:

    "CDC estimates* that, from October 1, 2019, through April 4, 2020, there have been: 24,000 – 62,000 flu deaths."

    That mistake aside, how does it make sense to directly compare 2 months of covid deaths despite mitigation (lockdown, social distancing, etc.) to 6 months of flu deaths with no mitigation until March?

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  2. Che: I was comparing to 2018-9 flu deaths. Yes, we are not done with the deaths from COVID-19, but it seems unlikely to be orders of magnitude worse.

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  3. How about the new hyperbole coming from the "News" media comparing the death rate to the Vietnam War? I guess they are telling us we must keep the economy shut down so we can get to the death rate of all the other 20th Century wars combined. What hokum!

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