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That's for the 2017-2018 season and it was the worst flu season in quite some time. The article even says it's the worst flu season in at least 4 decades and w

That's for the 2017-2018 season and it was the worst flu season in quite some time. The article even says it's the worst flu season in at least 4 decades and way outside the normal range: "In recent years, flu-related deaths have ranged from about 12,000 to — in the worst year — 56,000, according to the CDC." This is not to mention that these estimates include non flu deaths to compensate for the fact that not every dead person gets tested for the flu and even those that are, often wouldn't be documented as flu deaths. For example, if COVID-19 was merely a minor outbreak, COVID-19 deaths would be counted towards flu deaths, as the cause of the death would be viral pneumonia and viral pneumonia is statistically likely to be caused by the flu. The reverse isn't close to true - we're for the most part only attributing deaths to COVID-19 when it's either a confirmed case or otherwise overwhelmingly likely to be caused by it. It's a certainty that COVID-19 will end up killing more people in the month of April than the flu kills most years.

rpiguy 6y ago
Conversely if 80% of COVID carriers are asymptomatic and therefore untested as is currently theorized (the US aircraft carrier that became infected is the most recent example) then we should be multiplying the denominator by 5 for the mortality rate, because right now we are just putting tested cases in the denominator for COVID. This dramatically reduces the mortality rate for the disease. So the contagiousness of the disease actually reduces the mortality rate quite a lot, more so than uncounted deaths in the numerator. Secondly if you do the same thing for the flu, put confirmed flu deaths over confirmed flu cases (tested) the mortality for flu is 4%. This would be the apples to apples comparison.
- adrr 6y ago
  Flu has a vaccine reducing the r0 number. We didn’t shut down the nation for last years flu and we didn’t have to build field hospitals to deal with sick peoples. Hospitals didn’t cancel elective surgeries because they had space and resources. Fatality rate would be higher if we had to ration care but used social distancing and shutdowns to flatten the curve.

rpiguy 6y ago

Conversely if 80% of COVID carriers are asymptomatic and therefore untested as is currently theorized (the US aircraft carrier that became infected is the most recent example) then we should be multiplying the denominator by 5 for the mortality rate, because right now we are just putting tested cases in the denominator for COVID. This dramatically reduces the mortality rate for the disease. So the contagiousness of the disease actually reduces the mortality rate quite a lot, more so than uncounted deaths in the numerator. Secondly if you do the same thing for the flu, put confirmed flu deaths over confirmed flu cases (tested) the mortality for flu is 4%. This would be the apples to apples comparison.

adrr 6y ago
Flu has a vaccine reducing the r0 number. We didn’t shut down the nation for last years flu and we didn’t have to build field hospitals to deal with sick peoples. Hospitals didn’t cancel elective surgeries because they had space and resources. Fatality rate would be higher if we had to ration care but used social distancing and shutdowns to flatten the curve.