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This is pretty damming to anyone who claims "its just the flu": “More than three times as many deaths were recorded between January and August this year where

by bb123 6y ago

This is pretty damming to anyone who claims "its just the flu": “More than three times as many deaths were recorded between January and August this year where COVID-19 was the underlying cause compared to influenza and pneumonia." “The mortality rate for COVID-19 is also significantly higher than influenza and pneumonia rates for both 2020 and the five-year average." “Since 1959, which is when ONS monthly death records began, the number of deaths due to influenza and pneumonia in the first eight months of every year have been lower than the number of COVID-19 deaths seen, so far, in 2020.”

ryanjshaw 6y ago
Surely it's much more complicated than this? Assuming the COVID-19 assigned deaths are accurately labelled, how many COVID-19 deaths would have been pneumonia/influenza deaths? How many pneumonia/influenza deaths from 2021, 2022, ... have been brought forward to 2020? How much has the lockdown contributed to poor immune systems? Which age groups are affected more, were they already at life expectancy? It's obviously not the flu but it seems clear it will be years before we understand what the impact really is.
- MrsPeaches 6y ago
  From TFA: "The analysis of COVID-19, influenza and pneumonia deaths in this bulletin focuses on deaths where these conditions were the underlying cause of death (deaths “due to”), rather than deaths where the conditions were either the underlying cause or mentioned as a contributing factor (deaths “involving”). Data for deaths where COVID-19, influenza and pneumonia were a contributing factor are available in the accompanying dataset." They also point to this document for more details: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/methodologies/userguidetomortalitystatisticsjuly2017 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...
  - ryanjshaw 6y ago
    I made a number of points and I'm not sure which point this quote is meant to address as it doesn't appear to address any of them? There is no way to know if somebody would have died from the flu/pneumonia if they didn't first die from COVID-19. Excess death calculations provide a hint but are confounded by additional variables created by the lockdown (eg people not getting exercise, not getting checkups, not eating as well, depression, etc.) Furthermore excess death calculations can only take into account < one year of data at present. We don't know if it takes off 0.5, 1, 2, 3 or more years of your life expectancy ie. would you likely have died of a respiratory illness in 2021, 2022, etc. - these are important questions, I've seen estimates saying 8 years - which is a very compelling argument for lockdown - but would 0.5 or 1 year have the same gravity?
chrisco255 6y ago
The number of deaths from flu, pneumonia, and Covid are about 50% higher than the year 2000 (Jan-Aug) and about 25% higher than the year 1983. Do those numbers justify draconian shutdowns and bankrupting half of humanity? I'm not so sure. In the early days, we believed that Covid was 10-20 times deadlier than the flu, and that's what was used to justify the draconian measures. Note also these numbers are for the UK, one of the top worst countries hit in terms of deaths per million in the world. Also, Covid does not seem to have the same seasonality that the flu has, which peaks in cold winter months. It may therefore not be altogether accurate to merely compare Jan-Aug. We may need the whole year's data to better compare.
- deleted 6y ago
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- titzer 6y ago
  > In the early days, we believed that Covid was 10-20 times deadlier than the flu, and that's what was used to justify the draconian measures. I'm looking at this [1] data, Table 4, specifically the row for April. Deaths in April Pneumonia+Influenza, 5yr avg: 2,354.8 Pneumonia+Influenza, 2020: 1,933 COVID: 29,128 [1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=%2fpeoplepopulationandcommunity%2fbirthsdeathsandmarriages%2fdeaths%2fdatasets%2fdeathsduetocovid19comparedwithdeathsfrominfluenzaandpneumonia%2fdeathsoccurringbetween1januaryand31august2020/referencetables2.xlsx https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=%2fpeoplepopulationandcommun... April was peak, pre-lockdown, full-blown pandemic conditions. That's a 12x difference. Bad. Shit.
  - _-___________-_ 6y ago
    The influenza season in the UK is typically October-May with the peak period December-March. So the 2020 number for influenza is a bit flawed given that it's missing 25% of the typical peak period and 3/8 of the whole influenza season.
titzer 6y ago
Just look at the daily and monthly numbers. April was absolutely horrific, with daily deaths spiking at 15x and April at more than 10x. Lockdowns flattened the curve, care improved, mask wearing improved, and overall better hygiene, particularly at nursing homes. The overall death rate is going down because the age demographic of infection has changed as well. Basically, it's hitting more younger people and older people are taking more precautions. COVID is not to be trifled with.
- logicchains 6y ago
  >Lockdowns flattened the curve, care improved, mask wearing improved, and overall better hygiene, particularly at nursing homes. Comparing places with and without lockdowns there's actually little evidence that lockdowns led to a reduction in mortality: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/social-distancing-more-important-than-lockdowns-in-covid-19-fight-tau-644754 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/social-distancing-more-imp.... What was associated with a reduction in mortality was social distancing.
  - loopz 6y ago
    Lockdown was due to being unprepared. It's a long time since nearly all nations opened up again, though measures vary wildly and is researched on.
  - titzer 6y ago
    This is a really difficult causal inference to make. There are so many confounding variables, from quality of healthcare to age demographic of infection, etc. It's also noisy. A nursing home getting infected and many older folks dying can completely spike the numbers. So I pretty much don't trust their statistics, especially if they are reporting 3 significant figures like "7.49 days doubling the number of fatalities". Even just misaligning the starts of the exponential growth phase of curves (does it begin at 1 case per 100k, 5, 100?) can throw this way off.
gridlockd 6y ago
The confusion lies in "just the flu". Actual Influenza is in fact quite dangerous. However, we need to compare COVID-19 to Influenza to get some perspective. I would argue that Influenza is worse than COVID, for the simple reason that it kills more young people and children. The average age of a COVID fatality is higher than life expectancy. Influenza destroys more years of life. We also need to make a distinction between the time frame in which the virus was new and killed a disproportionate amount of susceptible people, versus the time frame we are in now, where the virus is once again kills less people than Influenza - as the data clearly shows, though it isn't highlighted in the publication.
- collyw 6y ago
  > Actual Influenza is in fact quite dangerous. Agreed, but we don't destroy economies over it, we just get on with things and accept it for what it is.
  - AstralStorm 6y ago
    Except influenza is nowhere near spreading as fast. If let unchecked, many millions of people would be dead - this has been avoided only by control measures, and we're not past it yet. If it's similar seasonality to Spanish flu, expect 4 waves. This is start of the second wave, likely biggest.
    - gridlockd 6y ago
      > If let unchecked, many millions of people would be dead - this has been avoided only by control measures, and we're not past it yet. This is an unfalsifiable claim, considering that virtually every country has done something to inhibit spread. It's also meaningless, because nobody is saying that nothing should be done to inhibit spread. The question is, what should be done? How many people-years can we realistically save, and at what cost? Every year, almost 3 million Americans will die of any cause. If we take a CFR of 0.4%, and a "herd immunity" threshold of 70%, the upper bound of deaths in the US from COVID-19 is under a million. The average age of a COVID-19 fatality is higher than life expectancy, which means that half of these deaths would've occured under any circumstance, in the near future. We can see high excess mortality right now, but we haven't seen how that translates into lowered mortality in the future.
rimliu 6y ago
> This is pretty damming to anyone who claims "its just > the flu" Any discussion about the COVID deaths that does not take age into account is not worth the time. For the younger population it may actually look better than the flu.
- funcDropShadow 6y ago
  But we need rules for the benefits of the society as whole not just for teens.
- pwinnski 6y ago
  Most of "the younger population" you refer to doesn't live isolated away from everyone else, so their own personal health isn't the only factor to consider.
sdfkkksdfsdff 6y ago
How did they determine the numbers?

by bb123 6y ago

ryanjshaw 6y ago

Surely it's much more complicated than this? Assuming the COVID-19 assigned deaths are accurately labelled, how many COVID-19 deaths would have been pneumonia/influenza deaths? How many pneumonia/influenza deaths from 2021, 2022, ... have been brought forward to 2020? How much has the lockdown contributed to poor immune systems? Which age groups are affected more, were they already at life expectancy? It's obviously not the flu but it seems clear it will be years before we understand what the impact really is.

MrsPeaches 6y ago
From TFA: "The analysis of COVID-19, influenza and pneumonia deaths in this bulletin focuses on deaths where these conditions were the underlying cause of death (deaths “due to”), rather than deaths where the conditions were either the underlying cause or mentioned as a contributing factor (deaths “involving”). Data for deaths where COVID-19, influenza and pneumonia were a contributing factor are available in the accompanying dataset." They also point to this document for more details: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/methodologies/userguidetomortalitystatisticsjuly2017 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...
- ryanjshaw 6y ago
  I made a number of points and I'm not sure which point this quote is meant to address as it doesn't appear to address any of them? There is no way to know if somebody would have died from the flu/pneumonia if they didn't first die from COVID-19. Excess death calculations provide a hint but are confounded by additional variables created by the lockdown (eg people not getting exercise, not getting checkups, not eating as well, depression, etc.) Furthermore excess death calculations can only take into account < one year of data at present. We don't know if it takes off 0.5, 1, 2, 3 or more years of your life expectancy ie. would you likely have died of a respiratory illness in 2021, 2022, etc. - these are important questions, I've seen estimates saying 8 years - which is a very compelling argument for lockdown - but would 0.5 or 1 year have the same gravity?

chrisco255 6y ago

The number of deaths from flu, pneumonia, and Covid are about 50% higher than the year 2000 (Jan-Aug) and about 25% higher than the year 1983. Do those numbers justify draconian shutdowns and bankrupting half of humanity? I'm not so sure. In the early days, we believed that Covid was 10-20 times deadlier than the flu, and that's what was used to justify the draconian measures. Note also these numbers are for the UK, one of the top worst countries hit in terms of deaths per million in the world. Also, Covid does not seem to have the same seasonality that the flu has, which peaks in cold winter months. It may therefore not be altogether accurate to merely compare Jan-Aug. We may need the whole year's data to better compare.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
titzer 6y ago
> In the early days, we believed that Covid was 10-20 times deadlier than the flu, and that's what was used to justify the draconian measures. I'm looking at this [1] data, Table 4, specifically the row for April. Deaths in April Pneumonia+Influenza, 5yr avg: 2,354.8 Pneumonia+Influenza, 2020: 1,933 COVID: 29,128 [1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=%2fpeoplepopulationandcommunity%2fbirthsdeathsandmarriages%2fdeaths%2fdatasets%2fdeathsduetocovid19comparedwithdeathsfrominfluenzaandpneumonia%2fdeathsoccurringbetween1januaryand31august2020/referencetables2.xlsx https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=%2fpeoplepopulationandcommun... April was peak, pre-lockdown, full-blown pandemic conditions. That's a 12x difference. Bad. Shit.
- _-___________-_ 6y ago
  The influenza season in the UK is typically October-May with the peak period December-March. So the 2020 number for influenza is a bit flawed given that it's missing 25% of the typical peak period and 3/8 of the whole influenza season.

titzer 6y ago

Just look at the daily and monthly numbers. April was absolutely horrific, with daily deaths spiking at 15x and April at more than 10x. Lockdowns flattened the curve, care improved, mask wearing improved, and overall better hygiene, particularly at nursing homes. The overall death rate is going down because the age demographic of infection has changed as well. Basically, it's hitting more younger people and older people are taking more precautions. COVID is not to be trifled with.

logicchains 6y ago
>Lockdowns flattened the curve, care improved, mask wearing improved, and overall better hygiene, particularly at nursing homes. Comparing places with and without lockdowns there's actually little evidence that lockdowns led to a reduction in mortality: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/social-distancing-more-important-than-lockdowns-in-covid-19-fight-tau-644754 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/social-distancing-more-imp.... What was associated with a reduction in mortality was social distancing.
- loopz 6y ago
  Lockdown was due to being unprepared. It's a long time since nearly all nations opened up again, though measures vary wildly and is researched on.
- titzer 6y ago
  This is a really difficult causal inference to make. There are so many confounding variables, from quality of healthcare to age demographic of infection, etc. It's also noisy. A nursing home getting infected and many older folks dying can completely spike the numbers. So I pretty much don't trust their statistics, especially if they are reporting 3 significant figures like "7.49 days doubling the number of fatalities". Even just misaligning the starts of the exponential growth phase of curves (does it begin at 1 case per 100k, 5, 100?) can throw this way off.

gridlockd 6y ago

The confusion lies in "just the flu". Actual Influenza is in fact quite dangerous. However, we need to compare COVID-19 to Influenza to get some perspective. I would argue that Influenza is worse than COVID, for the simple reason that it kills more young people and children. The average age of a COVID fatality is higher than life expectancy. Influenza destroys more years of life. We also need to make a distinction between the time frame in which the virus was new and killed a disproportionate amount of susceptible people, versus the time frame we are in now, where the virus is once again kills less people than Influenza - as the data clearly shows, though it isn't highlighted in the publication.

collyw 6y ago
> Actual Influenza is in fact quite dangerous. Agreed, but we don't destroy economies over it, we just get on with things and accept it for what it is.
- AstralStorm 6y ago
  Except influenza is nowhere near spreading as fast. If let unchecked, many millions of people would be dead - this has been avoided only by control measures, and we're not past it yet. If it's similar seasonality to Spanish flu, expect 4 waves. This is start of the second wave, likely biggest.
  - gridlockd 6y ago
    > If let unchecked, many millions of people would be dead - this has been avoided only by control measures, and we're not past it yet. This is an unfalsifiable claim, considering that virtually every country has done something to inhibit spread. It's also meaningless, because nobody is saying that nothing should be done to inhibit spread. The question is, what should be done? How many people-years can we realistically save, and at what cost? Every year, almost 3 million Americans will die of any cause. If we take a CFR of 0.4%, and a "herd immunity" threshold of 70%, the upper bound of deaths in the US from COVID-19 is under a million. The average age of a COVID-19 fatality is higher than life expectancy, which means that half of these deaths would've occured under any circumstance, in the near future. We can see high excess mortality right now, but we haven't seen how that translates into lowered mortality in the future.

rimliu 6y ago

> This is pretty damming to anyone who claims "its just > the flu" Any discussion about the COVID deaths that does not take age into account is not worth the time. For the younger population it may actually look better than the flu.

funcDropShadow 6y ago
But we need rules for the benefits of the society as whole not just for teens.
pwinnski 6y ago
Most of "the younger population" you refer to doesn't live isolated away from everyone else, so their own personal health isn't the only factor to consider.

sdfkkksdfsdff 6y ago

How did they determine the numbers?