No, COVID-19 Is Not Like The Flu—And We Have To Stop Comparing Them; It’s more deadly—and much more contagious.

Northwell Health ^ | 04/18/2020 | Cristina Guarino

[Osage Orange]

Except we know that hundreds of thousands if not millions are dead in China.

Let me rehash this for you....

You said the above...

And neither you nor I KNOW..what is the truth.

I cannot tell you what to do...or say.

Hell man..we do not even know what the TRUTH is here in the U.S.A....

[Pelham]

How they get an approximation of Covid deaths isn’t real complicated.

Because the flu comes around every year we know approx. how many deaths to expect each month due to the flu.

So this season we count the number of monthly respiratory deaths, and subtract the expected number of flu deaths from that total. Anything leftover will get attributed to something other than flu, this year meaning Covid.

If Covid isn’t doing much then the expected flu deaths will be about equal to the total deaths, and there won’t be much of anything left over to blame on Covid. In NYC this season the residual number of deaths after subtracting for flu is very large.

[Do_Tar]

Well, that article did get one sentence correct.

“Misinformation is dangerous.”

[daniel1212]

The number of flu deaths has mysteriously dropped to zero as all flu deaths are counted as Covid.

Not quite zero but around 300 in the last weekly count. And while the CDC provides the Number of Pneumonia Deaths, and Deaths with Pneumonia and COVID-19 together, yet I cannot find numbers for Deaths with Pneumonia and Influenza together.

It lists 6,549 Pneumonia Deaths for week 14 (4/4/2020) and 2,620 Deaths with Pneumonia and COVID-19 (including presumed Covid) and 5,457 by 5,457 (including presumed Covid) but the only data I can find for Deaths Due to Pneumonia and Influenza is a page that states "The percentage of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza is 11.9%, above the epidemic threshold of 7.0%". but not any counts, and a graph and data source that also only provide a percent.

Then the CDC reports for week 15 that "Laboratory confirmed flu activity as reported by clinical laboratories is now low" even though hospitalizations remain high..

Why does the CDC provide clear data by Deaths with Pneumonia and COVID-19 but not Deaths by Pneumonia and Influenza?

[daniel1212]

So what we have measured for the infected population is less than 1,000,000. What we measure for a death rate is about 4%. Since we don’t really know how many people have been infected already we know the rate will be less than that. But nobody knows how much less. Nobody. If the real death rate is .1% there must be 39 people infected for everyone that has been identified. That may turn out to be the case. I hope it is but there is no evidence that it will be that low.

Actually according to estimates the number of CV infections is far more than the confirmed cases, and that for the vast majority the infection is no more severe than a cold or they have no symptoms. Which means that the fatality rate based upon confirmed cases is about as accurate as counting the number of drunk drivers only based upon how many are tested.

For it is estimated that about 80% of those infected with Covid-19 experience a mild case [WHO said the like] – about as serious as a regular cold – and recover without needing any special treatment. Meanwhile a study in Iceland reports that as of April 11, the country has “tested 10% of its population for coronavirus - a figure far higher than anywhere else in the world -” [and with fatality rate of about 0.4%] and that “about half of its citizenry at any given time who have coronavirus but don't know it, will be asymptomatic” (show no symptoms), which is “a large percentage many experts studying the virus have suspected, but have had little firm data to corroborate.”

Another report is that those who are most vulnerable to death from Covid-19 are the aged with certain other heath conditions, thus 80 percent of US coronavirus deaths are people 65 and older. Then again, America murders over 2,000 of the most vulnerable souls a day (2017: https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states), while (for perspective) about 90 people die each day in the US from crashes, which are among the over 7,000 Americans who die every day in the US from a wide range of causes. (https://www.weisspaarz.com/leading-causes-death-by-state/)

[daniel1212]

You didn't hardly have any cases in San Francisco until 3 weeks ago. Now you have 1137 cases and 0 recoveries.

So you actually believe there are 0 recoveries? Tell me how this conclusion is arrived at.

[daniel1212]

And according to estimates, between 61,000 to 80,000 Americans died during the 2017-2018 season, the latter being the highest death toll in 40 years. During that 2017-2018 season, the percentage of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza (P&I) was at or above the epidemic threshold for 16 consecutive weeks. Nationally, mortality attributed to P&I exceeded 10.0% for four consecutive weeks, peaking at 10.8% during the week ending January 20, 2018, (https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/flu-season-2017-2018.htm) with older Americans dying at a rate of 169 Americans a day, or seven people per hour. (https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2018/older-flu-deaths-rising.html

Even more relevant would be the Asian flu of 1957–58 for which 116,000 American deaths are assigned (among about half of today's total US population). Also there was the Hong Kong flu of 1968–69 with its 100,000 American deaths.

[InterceptPoint]

I don’t disagree with you but getting to .1% seems like such a stretch. To do so we would have to already have 10’s of millions of people who were essentially symptom free or just pulled out of it without feeling the need to seek medical attention.

You should look at actual measured rates in some other countries - some are as high as 15% of the known infected populations. That’s 150 x .1%.

Fingers crossed. Hoping the experts have guessed right.

[DannyTN]

1) That’s what the reporting says.
2) Since most of the cases are less than 3 weeks old, it’s entirely possible it’s too soon to count anything as a recovery.
3) I did mention that the reporting might be bad.

[central_va]

More scare tactics and gas lighting.

[central_va]

20 KIA is a good weekend in Chitown.

[Wuli]

1. In re: “Though we won’t know the actual death rate until COVID-19 is contained and under control, we do know that it’s proving to have a higher death toll—or, in epidemiological terms, “case fatality rate.” According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the case fatality rate for the seasonal flu is approximately 0.1%. Thus far, the case fatality rate for COVID-19 has been cited anywhere between 1% and 4%—a death rate 10 to 40 times higher.”

That statement is derived from the absence of information telling anyone how many millions of unreported mild or asymptomatic cases of the Wuhan Virus there are. The closer to the realistic number of THOSE cases we get, the more the “death rate” precipitously will drop. The above statement asks that we suspend for the moment just how ignorant we are of the millions of unknown cases there are, and accept a currently inflated death rate due to that lack.

2. In re: “Even though we lose many people in the U.S. to the flu each year, we do have a vaccine for it and antiviral medication to treat with,” says Hirschwerk. “We don’t have any of that yet for COVID-19. And when a new infectious disease emerges in a community without preexisting immunity, there is a risk for more severe disease and for spread as a pandemic.” And “Even though there are several strains of what we collectively call “the flu,” getting the annual flu vaccine helps us develop a type of herd immunity; without that, the case fatality rate would be much higher, as it currently is with this new virus. We also have prescription medications to treat it, while there is no antiviral drug (*as of time of print) for COVID-19.”

A. Less than half the population gets the vaccine and even with the flu vaccine millions still get the flu, even after getting the vaccine and we don’t shut everything down for it. Are the authors suggest the Wuhan Virus vaccine will be the panacea that the flu vaccine is not. And B. I believe the authors and epidemiologists give excessive credit to a flu vaccine that often does not work, and too little credit to natural herd immunity developed in those who have had seasonal flu illnesses many times, and usually mild. C. And still the Wuhan Virus death numbers are not greater than the seasonal flu death numbers, even with its vaunted existing vaccine, and yet the authors would have us believe we cannot mitigate the effects of the Wuhan Virus, without a vaccine, even as our learning curve on doing just that grows every day. D. Is the Wuhan Virus intrinsically more deadly, or is it just a matter of getting as mature at treating Wuhan Virus cases (which we are rapidly doing) as we got to be treating severe flu cases.

[DiogenesLamp]

It's one month since the deaths started ramping up. Yes, we had cases back in February, but these are in the onesies and twosies. If you look at a chart of deaths versus time, you will see that between March 14th and April 14th, it has killed nearly 40,000 people.

Trying to focus on the earliest known cases is ignoring the essential point.

I just saw such a chart last week, but I can't find that chart in a quick search. I did find a site that said that the appropriate point to start is the time at which the daily death rate exceeded 100.

According to the chart I saw last week, that date was March 14th.

[daniel1212]

I don’t disagree with you but getting to .1% seems like such a stretch. To do so we would have to already have 10’s of millions of people who were essentially symptom free or just pulled out of it without feeling the need to seek medical attention.

Well, I do not think you need 10's of million, for when only a minuscule % of the total population have been tested, and those that are usually are the most sick and likely to die, and we have reports such as below, then the low percentage of deaths to infected persons is viable.

Stanford study suggests coronavirus is more widespread than realized

New Oxford Study Hidden By Mainstream Media: Millions Already Infected, Recovered, & Immune

Coronavirus: More Widespread, Less Deadly Than Claimed ?

Iceland has tested one-tenth of its population for coronavirus at random and found HALF of people have the disease without realising.. .

California has 10 times more coronavirus cases than reported - and HALF of all New Yorkers are infected, pair of scientists claim

[daniel1212]

1) That’s what the reporting says.

I know, and thus my question. For that stat is even more spurious than the death count, since if it based upon documented cases then it means the estimated vast majority of infected persons are neither counted as such (unless they die, sometimes), and thus recoveries are not documented either. And if not based upon documented cases then there is more guesswork than estimated infections.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/about/ states, in part: Recoveries = this statistic is highly imperfect, because reporting can be missing, incomplete, incorrect, based on different definitions, or dated (or a combination of all of these) for many governments, both at the local and national level, sometimes with differences between states within the same country or counties within the same state.

2) Since most of the cases are less than 3 weeks old, it’s entirely possible it’s too soon to count anything as a recovery.

Actually, apart from supernatural knowledge, entirely impossible to count anything statistic on recoveries as being close to the total. Much less zero.

3) I did mention that the reporting might be bad.

There is not "might" as regards citing zero recoveries since reporting lists none. Thus invoking zero recoveries as you did for S.f. proves nothing.

[daniel1212]

Thousands have had the virus, many without symptoms.

Indeed, as well as those who never are documented.

You mean, Shocking Report Shows Half The Homeless At Boston Shelter Tested Positive For COVID-19: And None Had Symptoms

[Svartalfiar]

The number of flu deaths has mysteriously dropped to zero as all flu deaths are counted as Covid.

Technically, all WuhanVirus deaths would be counted as "flu" per CDC. They define the annual flu numbers as "Influenza and Pneumonia-related", where Wuhan Virus falls under "influenza-like-illness". If you dig into the actual, confirmed flu numbers, There's less than 300M flu cases (out of ~1.3MM tests run), and actual deaths attributed to influenza is a consistent couple thousand per year. Yet, somehow, the 'official' estimate varies all over the place.

[Svartalfiar]

Also, the method for counting COVID-19 deaths is completely fraudulent.

If we counted influenza deaths the same way, influenza would be much more deadly than COVID-19.

Likewise, the method for counting influenza deaths is completely fraudulent.

If we counted Wuhan deaths the way we counted flu deaths, CDC would be estimating we've had half a million deaths so far, and no one would know that the actual tested and confirmed deaths was only around 40M. (In and of itself, inflated as you mentioned.)


If you go to this site: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/#S2, scroll about 3/4 of the way down, then open the chart data from the mortality chart, that's the best I can find for their actual number breakdowns. (I haven't tried going into death records searches, though while more accurate, is too time consuming and I don't care that much.) From that, you'll see that this flu season is broken into about 7700 flu deaths this year, and 117M pneumonia deaths, out of 1.8MM deaths from all causes. Considering flu+pneumonia adds up to 125M, I'm guessing these chart numbers are sourced from the CDC inflated guesstimate, and are NOT based on real, actual reported influenza deaths. So even the low 7700 flu death number is likely ~10x lower for actual positive cases, which fits what little data I have been able to piecemeal find: actual, confirmed influenza cause-of-deaths generally number several hundred to barely a few thousand per year.

I haven't been able to find any already completed data aggregated for flu recently, but here's a quick chart of older numbers comparing reported deaths to CDC estimates: