5 ms·

What you need to look is not fatality rate, but total fatalities caused by the disease. Flu kills 60000 a year max in US, Covid kills 5x that number. And it is

What you need to look is not fatality rate, but total fatalities caused by the disease. Flu kills 60000 a year max in US, Covid kills 5x that number. And it is unclear what will be a fatality rate for younger people whose organs are damaged by previous infection.

dicomdan 6y ago
Your math doesn’t add up.
- SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
  Clarify please.
ekianjo 6y ago
> Flu kills 60000 a year max in US These numbers are patently false. If this was even remotely true pretty much every family would know someone who has died from the flu at some point. The flu numbers are statistical evaluations based on no actual death counts. The real numbers of deaths from the flu are very likely much, much smaller.
- SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
  I dunno, CDC says that.
- ghaff 6y ago
  It's usually less than that (but still in the tens of thousands). But 2017-18 was estimated at >60,000. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html#:~:text=While%20the%20impact%20of%20flu,61%2C000%20deaths%20annually%20since%202010 https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html#:~:text=Whil.... You are of course welcome to ignore the CDC. You have a lot of company these days.
- __blockcipher__ 6y ago
  Your logic is actually backwards. Flu is extrapolated but it’s extrapolated fairly. Whereas for COVID-19 we perform mass testing and label every PCR-positive death a COVID death. I hope it’s self evident why that approach will massively inflate COVID deaths but if you would like I can break it down in detail for you.
  - thebruce87m 6y ago
    That’s why you look at excess mortality to see what’s actually happening and see how covid is being undercounted. You can’t hide the bodies: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/07/15/tracking-covid-19-excess-deaths-across-countries https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/07/15/tracking... You can look at past graphs here for a number of European countries to see how countries like Norway and Finland compare to e.g. the U.K. and Sweden. This helps dispel any myths about lockdowns themselves causing significant excess mortality: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/
nickthemagicman 6y ago
'organs damaged by previous infection' Fake news.
- SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
  You have fake brains, congratulations.
rossdavidh 6y ago
Well, the 2017 flu was a little over 60,000, but it was close to 60k, so we could say that, but the 1968 and 1957 flus were worse than that. Covid-19 isn't to 300,000 (5x 60k) yet, but I suppose it could get there. However, the idea of organs damaged, resulting in future fatalities, is not just "unclear". We could speculate the same about almost any virus, or for that matter any vaccine. Until time has passed, we won't know, but at this point neither northern Italy nor any other region that had early waves of Covid-19 have reported any such problem in even 1% of cases (not even 0.01% of cases, that I'm aware of). If a vaccine is tested on 10,000 people, and appears safe, we call it good enough, without waiting for several years to check on the possibility of long-term affects. It's not like vaccines have never had problems, but at some point you need to go by what you actually know and have seen, and the same logic applies to viruses (or any other risk). We haven't in fact seen anything that suggests a widespread problem in people who recover from covid-19, and given past results with SARS, MERS, and the four other coronaviruses which cause "colds", we don't have much reason to expect it. Could it happen in some significant percentage? Sure. The same is true of any virus, or for that matter any vaccine. But we don't gain anything from speculating on that.
- SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
  > Until time has passed, we won't know, but at this point neither northern Italy nor any other region that had early waves of Covid-19 have reported any such problem in even 1% of cases Did they actually do any monitoring and reporting? There is aplenty of people around with long Covid, I know personally one guy, who was actually diagnosed with myocarditis he never had before. > We haven't in fact seen anything that suggests a widespread problem in people who recover from covid-19, and given past results with SARS, MERS, Actually lots and lots SARS survivors did develop long-term problems. Besides, experiments on animals show, both SARS-1 and MERS caused very severe Antigen-dependent enhancement, which made the attempt to produce a vaccine futile. Not many viruses are capable of doing this, mostly flavivuruses and betacoronaviruses.
zby 6y ago
Actually you need to look at both. IFR shows you how dangerous the disease is once you contract it. The yearly fatality rates shows how much risk you have from the disease in a given year. Covid is much more contagious than flu - so there is bigger risk that you will contract it eventually, but once contracted it might be not much worse. We still don't have comparable stats on that - even for flu the stats are really all over the place: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3809029 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3809029 """ There is very substantial heterogeneity in published estimates of case fatality risk for H1N1pdm09, ranging from <1 to >10,000 per 100,000 infections (Figure 3). Large differences were associated with the choice of case definition (denominator). Because influenza virus infections are typically mild and self-limiting, and a substantial proportion of infections are subclinical and do not require medical attention, it is challenging to enumerate all symptomatic cases or infections.2, 45 In 2009, some of the earliest available information on fatality risk was provided by estimates based primarily on confirmed cases. However, because most H1N1pdm09 infections were not laboratory-confirmed, the estimates based on confirmed cases were up to 500 times higher than those based on symptomatic cases or infections (Figure 3). The consequent uncertainty about the case fatality risk and hence about the severity of H1N1pdm09 was problematic for risk assessment and risk communication during the period when many decisions about control and mitigation measures were being made. """

dicomdan 6y ago

Your math doesn’t add up.

SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
Clarify please.

ekianjo 6y ago

> Flu kills 60000 a year max in US These numbers are patently false. If this was even remotely true pretty much every family would know someone who has died from the flu at some point. The flu numbers are statistical evaluations based on no actual death counts. The real numbers of deaths from the flu are very likely much, much smaller.

SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
I dunno, CDC says that.
ghaff 6y ago
It's usually less than that (but still in the tens of thousands). But 2017-18 was estimated at >60,000. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html#:~:text=While%20the%20impact%20of%20flu,61%2C000%20deaths%20annually%20since%202010 https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html#:~:text=Whil.... You are of course welcome to ignore the CDC. You have a lot of company these days.
__blockcipher__ 6y ago
Your logic is actually backwards. Flu is extrapolated but it’s extrapolated fairly. Whereas for COVID-19 we perform mass testing and label every PCR-positive death a COVID death. I hope it’s self evident why that approach will massively inflate COVID deaths but if you would like I can break it down in detail for you.
- thebruce87m 6y ago
  That’s why you look at excess mortality to see what’s actually happening and see how covid is being undercounted. You can’t hide the bodies: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/07/15/tracking-covid-19-excess-deaths-across-countries https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/07/15/tracking... You can look at past graphs here for a number of European countries to see how countries like Norway and Finland compare to e.g. the U.K. and Sweden. This helps dispel any myths about lockdowns themselves causing significant excess mortality: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/

nickthemagicman 6y ago

'organs damaged by previous infection' Fake news.

SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
You have fake brains, congratulations.

rossdavidh 6y ago

Well, the 2017 flu was a little over 60,000, but it was close to 60k, so we could say that, but the 1968 and 1957 flus were worse than that. Covid-19 isn't to 300,000 (5x 60k) yet, but I suppose it could get there. However, the idea of organs damaged, resulting in future fatalities, is not just "unclear". We could speculate the same about almost any virus, or for that matter any vaccine. Until time has passed, we won't know, but at this point neither northern Italy nor any other region that had early waves of Covid-19 have reported any such problem in even 1% of cases (not even 0.01% of cases, that I'm aware of). If a vaccine is tested on 10,000 people, and appears safe, we call it good enough, without waiting for several years to check on the possibility of long-term affects. It's not like vaccines have never had problems, but at some point you need to go by what you actually know and have seen, and the same logic applies to viruses (or any other risk). We haven't in fact seen anything that suggests a widespread problem in people who recover from covid-19, and given past results with SARS, MERS, and the four other coronaviruses which cause "colds", we don't have much reason to expect it. Could it happen in some significant percentage? Sure. The same is true of any virus, or for that matter any vaccine. But we don't gain anything from speculating on that.

SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
> Until time has passed, we won't know, but at this point neither northern Italy nor any other region that had early waves of Covid-19 have reported any such problem in even 1% of cases Did they actually do any monitoring and reporting? There is aplenty of people around with long Covid, I know personally one guy, who was actually diagnosed with myocarditis he never had before. > We haven't in fact seen anything that suggests a widespread problem in people who recover from covid-19, and given past results with SARS, MERS, Actually lots and lots SARS survivors did develop long-term problems. Besides, experiments on animals show, both SARS-1 and MERS caused very severe Antigen-dependent enhancement, which made the attempt to produce a vaccine futile. Not many viruses are capable of doing this, mostly flavivuruses and betacoronaviruses.

zby 6y ago

Actually you need to look at both. IFR shows you how dangerous the disease is once you contract it. The yearly fatality rates shows how much risk you have from the disease in a given year. Covid is much more contagious than flu - so there is bigger risk that you will contract it eventually, but once contracted it might be not much worse. We still don't have comparable stats on that - even for flu the stats are really all over the place: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3809029 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3809029 """ There is very substantial heterogeneity in published estimates of case fatality risk for H1N1pdm09, ranging from <1 to >10,000 per 100,000 infections (Figure 3). Large differences were associated with the choice of case definition (denominator). Because influenza virus infections are typically mild and self-limiting, and a substantial proportion of infections are subclinical and do not require medical attention, it is challenging to enumerate all symptomatic cases or infections.2, 45 In 2009, some of the earliest available information on fatality risk was provided by estimates based primarily on confirmed cases. However, because most H1N1pdm09 infections were not laboratory-confirmed, the estimates based on confirmed cases were up to 500 times higher than those based on symptomatic cases or infections (Figure 3). The consequent uncertainty about the case fatality risk and hence about the severity of H1N1pdm09 was problematic for risk assessment and risk communication during the period when many decisions about control and mitigation measures were being made. """