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

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

#41

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

travisp wrote: post #21
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…

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.

What region doesn’t have it? What model shows we aren’t near peak death now?

Edit: seriously asking questions.

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

#42

Post by hnburnsy »

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…

Does anyone feel like this happens with some approaching hurricane coverage where the scientists may overestimate things like storm surge to try and prod people to evacuate? Now when the next hurricane approaches they remember what happened last time and might be less likely to leave.

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

#43

Post by minikites »

Inaccurate comparisons like this one are often made in bad faith by someone who knows full well that it's misleading but it serves a political purpose.

Assuming good faith intentions by the current US political leadership is comically naive at this point.

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

#44

Post by rsynnott »

HPsquared wrote: post #25

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?

Differs on a country by country basis, but generally it's pretty bad in Western Europe anyway. See https://euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ for excess mortality data.

By the way, most countries' local COVID peak is either in April or still to come; it's not really winter deaths.

One caveat; in many countries, death reporting is pretty slow and data from the last couple of weeks shouldn't be considered particularly reliable.

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

#45

Post by martin-adams »

dominotw wrote: post #29

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://chic…

I'd love to know the answer on this question too. The only theory I have is that it's being spread through key workers. So those caring for other like hospitals and care homes.

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

#46

Post by gpderetta »

HPsquared wrote: post #14
toolz wrote: post #4

so 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 g…

After this is all settled we can compare all-cause mortality. It may be complicated by lockdown side-effects though, so we might never know.

There are countries that are under lockdown with relatively small exposure to covid which can be used as control.

Even within a country, lockdown rules are often homogeneous, while the spread of the virus can be quite patchy, allowing for some form of control.

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

#47

Post by ceejayoz »

dominotw wrote: post #29

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://chic…

> Does this mean ppl aren't following the guidelines properly ?

Yes, most likely. Folks still have to go out for groceries. Essential workers spread it to their families. The city had to close down various beaches and trails because people weren't staying far enough apart. etc. etc. etc.

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

#48

Post by hartator »

dominotw wrote: post #29

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://chic…

Or lockdowns are not significantly slowing down the virus to be statically visible. The thing is airborne, can spread to animals, and into the pipes. Lockdowns don’t affect those at all.

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

#49

Post by bonzini »

donatj wrote: post #24

> 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…

Fortunately you can look at mortality rates and you can see that in Europe it's even worse than the official statistics. Excess mortality is twice higher than recorded COVID deaths in the Netherlands for example.[1]

Even though there is a harvesting effect and you can expect mortality to be lower than average in the next few months (the famous "people that would have died anyway"), the data is not exactly substantiating conspiracy theories such as yours.

[1] https://www.rivm.nl/en/news/excess-mortality-caused-by-novel...

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

#50

Post by rossdavidh »

dominotw wrote: post #29

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://chic…

To put it gently, the science behind lockdown limiting the spread of a virus in a urban environment is...limited. But they felt they had to do something. It's kind of like making the medicine taste bad so you'll believe that it is doing something.
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