Do they just assume that someone with pneumonia had the flu?
Re: Do they just assume that someone with pneumonia had the flu?
Not that I know about.
The rule of thumb is that flu and the common cold cause (or “precede”) at least 35% of annual pneumonia cases.
So far in 2020, the “reported” pneumonia death toll is 134,000 and the flu death toll is 8,300.
Flu deaths are just a tiny fraction of pneumonia deaths, which is not the way that CDC tells state medical examiners to report COVID and pneumonia deaths.