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Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia

ons.gov.uk

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Re: Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia

#31

Post by gizmondo »

born_a_skeptic wrote: post #3

I'm not a statistician or a scientist, but I don't it does any good to lump everything together over the past ~9 months and compare it to Influenza and Pneumonia. Just think about it. We barely knew anything about covid or how to treat it at the start of the year. Now, it seems like we have a better understanding and how to potentially treat it. Compare this to Influenza/Pneumonia, which I'm just guessing we've been…

> Compare this to Influenza/Pneumonia, which I'm just guessing we've been studying for much longer and already have treatments for.

Do we? It's mostly the same symptomatic treatment afaik, influenza antivirals are barely effective. The real difference is that there is a vaccine.

Re: Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia

#32

Post by prox »

fabian2k wrote: post #18

I think it is important to keep in mind that Covid-19 is still contained to some extent due to various measures. The influenza numbers are for the most part without any behaviour changes or rules (the influenza season ended roughly when Covid started to spread). The Covid-19 deaths would be higher if it were able to spread unhindered through the entire population. And even in this somewhat unfair comparison Covid cau…

It’s also contained because unleashing it would totally overwhelm almost any nation’s hospitals, cause a cascading death toll because no treatment could be given.

Re: Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia

#33

Post by gridlockd »

bb123 wrote: post #2

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 recor…

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.

Re: Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia

#34

Post by rimliu »

bb123 wrote: post #2

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 recor…

   > 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.

Re: Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia

#35

Post by richrichardsson »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #14
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #4

This chart from Sweden says its not worse than influenza: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ejd0IpdVcAASTqR?format=jpg&name=... Looking at the source data, the numbers seem roughly right: https://knoema.de/atlas/Schweden/Sterblichkeitsrate I don't know what to think anymore.

Note that despite what you might think, Swedes do socially distance. So if they have what looks like a bad flu season despite all the changes to everyday life you can assume that it's at the very least worse than influenza for which no such restrictions are done.

I've seen a joke that is along the lines of, "Swedes are looking forward to the relaxing of the 2m social distancing rule, so that they can resume the 10m social distancing of the past."

I'm of the opinion that comparing countries is mostly a pointless exercise, because there are so many variables involved.

Re: Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia

#36

Post by logicchains »

throwaway936482 wrote: post #26
gridlockd wrote: post #5

Some things to consider from looking at the raw data: The 5-year average minimum of deaths from "Influenza and pneumonia" is about 50 cases per day. The average for 2020 is about half that. Adding up COVID fatalities and "Influeanza and pneumonia" after July comes to about 50 cases per day. In other words, there is no excess mortality from COVID-19 since July.

Largely because we locked down the entire country and had largely stopped community transmission by then I imagine. Now that lockdown has been lifted and what restrictions there are are increasingly being ignored we are seeing increased community transmission, a concomitant increase in hospital admissions and should start seeing an increase in deaths over the next couple of weeks. Hopefully this wave of deaths will b…

> a concomitant increase in hospital admissions and should start seeing an increase in deaths over the next couple of weeks.

For the past couple months people have been predicting an increase in deaths to follow the increase in cases, but it hasn't happened.

Re: Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia

#37

Post by _-___________-_ »

titzer wrote: post #25
chrisco255 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> 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=%2fpeoplepopulationandcommun... April was peak, pre-lockdown, full-bl…

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.

Re: Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia

#38

Post by narrator »

evgen wrote: post #17
gridlockd wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't seem right to me. Euromomo does show a bump for Sweden, though it is still smaller than some other countries that did lockdowns: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps Also, several countries show no excess mortality.

Compare Sweden to its immediate neighbors like Norway, Finland, and Denmark and the cost of Sweden's failed response becomes pretty obvious.

They didn't have to shut down the country though and since August there's 6 or less deaths a day.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

Re: Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia

#40

Post by _-___________-_ »

While interpreting this it's worth noting that the influenza season in the UK is typically October-May with the peak period December-March. So the 2020 numbers for influenza are missing 25% of the typical peak period and 3/8 of the whole influenza season.
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