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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

#51

Post by piokoch »

tremon wrote: post #20
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…

I don't think you can lump everything together Why not? Do you think the number of previously recorded deaths will suddenly decrease because we've found a better treatment? These people died, they should be included in the statistics.

I think the point here is that once we learned how to handle Covid, it will not be more dangerous than flu.

The main question for me is if someone who got Covid and recovered can get sick again. I haven't seen any answer for that question I could trust. There are some headlines from time to time "got Covid again after recovery", but given the quality of media reporting it means nothing.

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

#52

Post by fabian2k »

logicchains wrote: post #43
prox wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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. This is clearly not true because it didn't overwhelm Sweden's hospitals, or Japan's, or South Dakota's, even though they didn't have lockdowns, just voluntary social distancing.

I intentionally mentioned behaviour changes first in my comment, we can't fully separate rules and lockdowns from voluntary behavioural changes. In the end all that matters is the changed behaviour, not whether it was enforced or not.

Full lockdowns are also not the best way to handle increasing numbers now, they were necessary earlier this year because we didn't know much about the virus and which situations are the most dangerous. With the knowledge we have today we can use more specific interventions to contain the virus.

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

#53

Post by scrollaway »

dustinmoris wrote: post #15
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.

Well the UK chart also shows that: - Influenza and Pneumonia are counted as one, because the majority of Pneumonia deaths are due to Influenza - Influenza and Pneumonia deaths have been SUBSTANTIALLY lower ever single month in 2020 than the five year average - Of the deaths where both influenza and pneumonia, and COVID-19 were mentioned on the death certificate, the underlying cause of death was counted as COVID-19 i…

Doesn't it make sense that influenza numbers would be far lower this year given all the health security measures employed for covid?

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

#54

Post by collyw »

gridlockd wrote: post #33
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 be…

> Actual Influenza is in fact quite dangerous.

Agreed, but we don't destroy economies over it, we just get on with things and accept it for what it is.

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

#55

Post by WinstonSmith84 »

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, important to keep in mind that Influenza has a vaccination, which is very cheap and many elderly people take it. Yet, many die from it (and it doesn't make any headlines).

We are at the end just comparing apples to oranges. It would be really interesting to make such comparisons if we hadn't any vaccination for Influenza.

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

#56

Post by titzer »

_-___________-_ wrote: post #37
titzer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You'd have to compare infection rates for the season peak to matter. Infection rates for influenza probably being an order of magnitude worse than Coronavirus in April, probably. But whatever, the mortality rate data is there in the table, too, if you care to look. Influenza death rate in January 5yr average was 4218, which is about 1.8x worse than April. That absolutely does not make up the 12x difference here.

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

#57

Post by zpeti »

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…

Influenza is contained because there is some form of herd immunity already. Remember COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus, which is why it's spread so much so fast, no one is immune at first. But to suggest that the covid death numbers will be this high year after year after year is unlikely in my opinion, as is shown by the fact that many places with big first waves (north italy, sweden, london) don't have a second wave (especially in death numbers).

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

#58

Post by dustinmoris »

scrollaway wrote: post #53
dustinmoris wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the UK chart also shows that: - Influenza and Pneumonia are counted as one, because the majority of Pneumonia deaths are due to Influenza - Influenza and Pneumonia deaths have been SUBSTANTIALLY lower ever single month in 2020 than the five year average - Of the deaths where both influenza and pneumonia, and COVID-19 were mentioned on the death certificate, the underlying cause of death was counted as COVID-19 i…

Doesn't it make sense that influenza numbers would be far lower this year given all the health security measures employed for covid?

It would, but when you look at the data for the last 3 months Influenza has killed more people than COVID-19, so apparently that logic is not true.

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

#59

Post by UrsaMedius »

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.

This is an oversimplification. What specifics do you claim puts Sweden closer to the other Nordics than other European contries?

For example, Sweden had school breaks around the time of the large outbreaks in northern Italy and Austria, leading to many ski vacations to those areas. Did the other Nordics?

To be clear, I don't proclaim this little example to be an explanation for why Sweden had more cases, only to shine some light on how complicated things can be. It is not clear that Sweden's response "failed" and it certainly isn't "pretty obvious".

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

#60

Post by martyvis »

logicchains wrote: post #43
prox wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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. This is clearly not true because it didn't overwhelm Sweden's hospitals, or Japan's, or South Dakota's, even though they didn't have lockdowns, just voluntary social distancing.

Japan has a culture of wearing masks when conditions prevail (normally pollution related but also disease). They also tend to be not into physical contact in social settings, and are more likely to be in compliance to societal laws.
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