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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

#121

Post by ceejayoz »

greedo wrote: post #118
ceejayoz wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not. It can be in certain medical procedures, like intubation. ( https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2765376 )

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2004973 https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/tiny-airborne-part... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2271-3_reference....

You've completely misread that first study.

> Aerosols (They intentionally created aerosols for the purposes of the study.

The other studies relate to aerosols in hospitals, which are likely generated by those aerosol-generating procedures; intubation, nebulizers, etc. Healthcare staff are observing aerosol precautions when doing these procedures for this reason.

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

#122

Post by pacala »

ModernMech wrote: post #111
erodommoc wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the charts for a number of states in the US. It's pretty dramatic. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/28/us/coronaviru...

Dear god those charts are useless. Different scales all lined up next to each other, no clue as to the value of the bottom of the y axis, no clue as to what the baseline or the peak numbers are, no ability to actually inspect the data... Who are they hiring to do this nonsense at NYT?

Going to be charitable and hope the bottom of y axis is zero.

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

#123

Post by saalweachter »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #41
travisp wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> What region doesn’t have it?

Different regions have been infected to different degrees; in the worst hit areas like New York City up to 25% of the population may have caught it by now, but in many (most?) regions less than 1% of the population has been exposed so far.

> What model shows we aren’t near peak death now?

The question is, "What are you modeling?" Are you modeling what happens if the pandemic is contained at this point, and infection rates stay constant, or are you modeling a fast or slow spread to "herd immunity" (currently estimated at 85% of the population catching it)? In some situations, sure, it's almost over, in others, holy shit, it hasn't really started yet, this is the calm before the storm.

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

#124

Post by ceejayoz »

dominotw wrote: post #120
ceejayoz wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lifting of the order and people actually going back to normal are very different things. Restaurant bookings tanked before the lockdown orders. If enough Georgians go "nope, not going out, not safe" the lockdown is de-facto still in place, even without a legal order. (There are also other confounding factors, like people wearing masks, washing hands more often, etc.)

> even without a legal order. If it remains linear in atlanta, would that be an argument for lifting legal order here in chicago ?

Maybe.

My concern would be the lagging nature of the indicator. If Georgians start loosening up on self-imposed restrictions after a week or two of being cautious, and case numbers lag by two weeks or so, we're talking about a month or more before we get warning signs that Georgia might wind up a "don't do this" case study.

It is my hope that Georgia demonstrates "wear a mask and be careful" can work to stem the spread of the virus and we can all relax a bit. I don't know how likely that is.

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

#125

Post by pacala »

gpderetta wrote: post #37
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?

in the most affected countries in Europe, it is significantly higher (2, 3 times) than the worst flu seasons in recent times.

That being said, we have developed a combination of vaccines and ICU treatments to drastically reduce the mortality of the flu. This is not your '70 flu anymore.

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

#126

Post by kevingadd »

glofish wrote: post #119
kevingadd wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shutdown wouldn't happen if the coronavirus wasn't spreading. It's the indirect cause, remove it and the hospitals aren't shut down.

you are confusing the response with the disease - mandating that people cannot go to go to the beach is not caused by the virus, it is caused by a bureaucrat. There is no evidence whatsoever that going to a beach causes infections. If anything makes your body stronger and more able to cope with a disease.

Exposure to the virus is how you get the virus. If there are other people at the beach, some of them might be infected, and you're being exposed by being in proximity. Maybe if you're Far Enough Away you can limit the exposure, but are people really Social Distancing on beaches and in restaurants? Evidence so far suggests the answer is no.

Incidentally there is also a lot of data out there suggesting that the virus can travel through the air a pretty reasonable distance, and it's likely to be breezy on the beach.

In any case, why would a bureaucrat want to go out of their way to close hospitals if there wasn't a good reason? Who benefits from that? Literally no one. It's only a reasonable idea because of the outbreak. The only people you see closing hospitals on purpose are vulture capitalists.

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

#127

Post by s1artibartfast »

soperj wrote: post #87
SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What region doesn’t have it? What model shows we aren’t near peak death now? Edit: seriously asking questions.

I'm not sure if you're being wilfully ignorant at this point. There are 3.3 million confirmed cases world wide, in a population of 7.8 billion. Say they've missed 90% of cases, and we're actually at like 100 million cases, that's still only 1% of the world that has it. Massive regions like India, Africa don't have it.

Are we going to see 9-40 times more deaths this season from those regions?

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

#128

Post by ceejayoz »

ModernMech wrote: post #111
erodommoc wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the charts for a number of states in the US. It's pretty dramatic. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/28/us/coronaviru...

Dear god those charts are useless. Different scales all lined up next to each other, no clue as to the value of the bottom of the y axis, no clue as to what the baseline or the peak numbers are, no ability to actually inspect the data... Who are they hiring to do this nonsense at NYT?

They're not intended for comparing chart to chart, there's a table with key numbers below, and links at the bottom to country-by-country, state-by-state, and "look up your city" options.

It's a "look at the spikes" illustration in the spot in an article a big photo would typically go.

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

#129

Post by malandrew »

ceejayoz wrote: post #32
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?

It's possible, and it's being done. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/27/upshot/corona... > The recent death count reached six times the normal number of deaths for the city at this time of year, a surge in deaths much larger than what could be attributed to normal seasonal variations from influenza, heart disease or other more common causes. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronav... >…

One question I have is how many of these excess deaths is due to coronavirus and how many are due to our response to coronavirus since people are not getting their regular health care. For example, my dad has congestive heart failure and sees his doctor once a month and gets an EKG every time. I've been in appointments and the majority of the discussion centers around changes in his EKGs from the previous months. Right now, he's not getting these regular checkups and appointments. He could have a change in prognosis go undetected and end up with a preventable heart attack.

Is coronavirus the black swan event or is our reaction to coronavirus the black swan event. It's hard to say.

Looking at all cause mortality excess deaths between Sweden and lockdown countries, it's hard to say:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronav...

One question I'm also curious about is if in the years following the coronavirus, will we see negative excess deaths relative to previous seasonal averages because of the excess deaths right now.

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

#130

Post by pacala »

makomk wrote: post #107
zenpaul wrote: post #39

Two important takeaways here. "In fact, in the fine print, the CDC’s flu numbers also include pneumonia deaths." "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 from influenza during the worst week of the past seven flu seasons (as reported to the CDC), we find that the novel coronavirus killed between 9.5…

Pneumonia is a common fatal complication of influenza, and I think there's reasonably good statistical evidence that the cases counted towards flu deaths are mostly caused by the flu especially in the bad flu epidemic years which are most comparable to Covid-19. That sentence is a bit like claiming that people don't die from falling out of airplanes because the actual cause of death was hitting the ground.

I think you meant 'flu deaths are mostly caused by [bacterial] pneumonia'. One thought along those lines is that the spike in deaths we see is due to covid19 killing directly, death coming like clockwork X weeks after infection. Compared to the flu, which due to the requirement for a secondary bacterial pneumonia, has a higher variability in the timing of the death: at what time bacterial infection develops, which strain of bacteria, antibiotic interference, etc. Thus, we're going to see higher spikes for covid, and hopefully narrower.
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