Comparing Covid-19 Deaths to Flu Deaths Is Like Comparing Apples to Oranges
blogs.scientificamerican.com
Comparing Covid-19 Deaths to Flu Deaths Is Like Comparing Apples to Oranges
1–10 of 183 posts
Re: Comparing Covid-19 Deaths to Flu Deaths Is Like Comparing Apples to Oranges
#2Yeah, but they are both denominated in the same thing, human lives.
Bit easier for people to get their head into than QALYs
Re: Comparing Covid-19 Deaths to Flu Deaths Is Like Comparing Apples to Oranges
#3Why can't we compare apples and oranges? They're fruit. They have nutritions. I don't like this metaphor.
Re: Comparing Covid-19 Deaths to Flu Deaths Is Like Comparing Apples to Oranges
#4so we go from
>3,448 to 15,620
confirmed deaths to
>25,000 to 69,000
estimated deaths? It's no wonder Americans have trust issues with medical experts. That's an absurd number created just to scare people into getting vaccinated. Which appears to be the authors opinion as well.
> While in the past it was justifiable to err on the side of substantially overestimating flu deaths, in order to encourage vaccination and good hygiene
I feel like trust is entirely undervalued in the scientific community. How are lay people expected to follow scientific advice if we can't trust the scientists?
Re: Comparing Covid-19 Deaths to Flu Deaths Is Like Comparing Apples to Oranges
#5Flu, seasonal pneumonia... what's the diff?
Re: Comparing Covid-19 Deaths to Flu Deaths Is Like Comparing Apples to Oranges
#6But let's compare them anyway.
"we find that the novel coronavirus killed between 9.5 and 44 times more people than seasonal flu."
That was easy wasn't it.
Re: Comparing Covid-19 Deaths to Flu Deaths Is Like Comparing Apples to Oranges
#7[deleted]
Re: Comparing Covid-19 Deaths to Flu Deaths Is Like Comparing Apples to Oranges
#8Why can't we compare apples and oranges? They're fruit. They have nutritions. I don't like this metaphor.
How about oranges vs lemons? That way they are superficially similar but one is a lot more palatable than the other. Regular coronavirus = eating an orange. SARS-CoV-2 = eating a lemon...
Re: Comparing Covid-19 Deaths to Flu Deaths Is Like Comparing Apples to Oranges
#9Why can't we compare apples and oranges? They're fruit. They have nutritions. I don't like this metaphor.
We can, but at the same time it would be different than a comparison of say a granny smith and a gala apple.
Oranges share fundamental properties with apples - they are ”fruits” and ”pip” ones at that, and can be compared as such - but there’s a clear distiction and a reason for the grouping of ”apples” and ”oranges”.
Re: Comparing Covid-19 Deaths to Flu Deaths Is Like Comparing Apples to Oranges
#10every now and then I am reminded that there are in fact lots of different metrics that can be used to compare Apples and Oranges.