Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Comparing Covid-19 Deaths to Flu Deaths Is Like Comparing Apples to Oranges

blogs.scientificamerican.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 183 posts

Re: Comparing Covid-19 Deaths to Flu Deaths Is Like Comparing Apples to Oranges

#21

Post by travisp »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #18
paleotrope wrote: post #6

But 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.

>That was easy wasn't it. Was it? I don’t get it. I found that there so far have been covid 234,133 deaths [0] and season flu can cause up to 646,000 deaths [1]. So I’m not seeing 9x to 44x by any reasonable metric or projection. What am I missing? If 9 to 44x is possible, there need to be models that would show that. Does anyone have a model that shows we aren’t even remotely near peak deaths? Even if the article is…

You're missing how many people have gotten infected and where. If a region has not yet had substantial transmission of the coronavirus, then it won't have many deaths. This would also be like saying in August, "the flu has only killed 100 people, I guess the flu won't be very deadly this year."

Approximately 0.25% of NYC's entire population has died of COVID, which is significantly more than die of the seasonal flu.

Re: Comparing Covid-19 Deaths to Flu Deaths Is Like Comparing Apples to Oranges

#22

Post by JamesG124 »

m1117 wrote: post #3

Why can't we compare apples and oranges? They're fruit. They have nutritions. I don't like this metaphor.

It's about comparison of individuals.

Only when two individuals belong to the same specifies does it make sense to compare them.

For example, "is Fred taller than John?" is much better defined than "is Fred taller than [some porpoise]?"

It's certainly possible to compare species themselves, e.g. how does the typical orange differ from the typical apple. But the idea behind the popular saying concerns individual comparison, not species comparison

Re: Comparing Covid-19 Deaths to Flu Deaths Is Like Comparing Apples to Oranges

#23

Post by thembones »

> The CDC should immediately change how it reports flu deaths. 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

Yeah... except this is exactly what they are doing for COVID deaths, read the below.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/coronavirus/Alert-2-New-I...

Re: Comparing Covid-19 Deaths to Flu Deaths Is Like Comparing Apples to Oranges

#24

Post by donatj »

> The former [COVID] are actual numbers; the latter [Flu] are inflated statistical estimates

With doctors being instructed by the CDC to count every death that could have potentially been COVID as a COVID death, in the face of near total lack of testing, saying that the numbers are not inflated is a bold faced lie.

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/04/07/covid19-death-certi...

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/vsrg/vsrg03-508.pdf

Re: Comparing Covid-19 Deaths to Flu Deaths Is Like Comparing Apples to Oranges

#25

Post by HPsquared »

Flu or not, it's possible to compare all-cause mortality this year against previous years. That's about as hard data as it gets. How does Covid compare to "seasonal all-cause-winter-deaths"? That's what people are interested in - how unprecedented is the death rate?

Re: Comparing Covid-19 Deaths to Flu Deaths Is Like Comparing Apples to Oranges

#26

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

ceejayoz wrote: post #20
SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That was easy wasn't it. Was it? I don’t get it. I found that there so far have been covid 234,133 deaths [0] and season flu can cause up to 646,000 deaths [1]. So I’m not seeing 9x to 44x by any reasonable metric or projection. What am I missing? If 9 to 44x is possible, there need to be models that would show that. Does anyone have a model that shows we aren’t even remotely near peak deaths? Even if the article is…

> What am I missing? It's right there in your comment: > so far (Also, the rest of the paragraph that 9-44x number comes from:) > To do this, we have to compare counted deaths to counted deaths, not counted deaths to wildly inflated statistical estimates . If we compare, for instance, the number of people who died in the United States from COVID-19 in the second full week of April to the number of people who died fro…

No, I don’t think I am missing that. Which is why I used those words.

I have no doubt covid is worse than flu and have no issue with being more cautious than reckless.

But if you can find me a model that shows we’re no where near peak deaths and are still looking to 9 to 44 times more, I’d like to see that.

Edit: anyone? Sources? Models?

Re: Comparing Covid-19 Deaths to Flu Deaths Is Like Comparing Apples to Oranges

#27

Post by jarym »

macinjosh wrote: post #13

From the article: > The CDC should immediately change how it reports flu deaths. 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 Doctors, scientists, and the CDC, basically everyone we've been told to always trust when it comes to these matters, are and have been 'substantially' inflating flu death numbers to manipu…

I agree. But within that same batch of people, faced with undeniable first-hand evidence of the severity of something like covid-19 will inexplicably choose to blame 5G antennas. Nutso people are nutso is my only conclusion.

Re: Comparing Covid-19 Deaths to Flu Deaths Is Like Comparing Apples to Oranges

#28

Post by ceejayoz »

m1117 wrote: post #3

Why can't we compare apples and oranges? They're fruit. They have nutritions. I don't like this metaphor.

> Why can't we compare apples and oranges?

We can! But, we must do so carefully.

"They're both sweet" cannot be used to conclude "they are the same".

Re: Comparing Covid-19 Deaths to Flu Deaths Is Like Comparing Apples to Oranges

#29

Post by dominotw »

I have a simple covid related question, hopefully someone can answer this here.

We have been under lockdown for over 6 weeks here in chicago. But chicago had highest number of deaths all of this week[1]. If we were under lockdown 6 weeks ago how did the people who died this week get infected. Does this mean ppl aren't following the guidelines properly ? I feel like I am missing something obvious here.

1. https://chicago.suntimes.com/coronavirus/2020/4/28/21240216/...

Re: Comparing Covid-19 Deaths to Flu Deaths Is Like Comparing Apples to Oranges

#30

Post by fullshark »

bmat wrote: post #11
paleotrope wrote: post #6

But 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.

The point was comparing reported COVID deaths to statistically extrapolated flu deaths is apples to oranges. What you quoted was a comparison of reported deaths to reported deaths.

I think comparing just reported deaths is probably even worse, the rate of undercounting of flu deaths and undercounting of covid deaths (in a pandemic with a ton of testing / heightened observation) is not going to be comparable.
Post reply on HN