Posted on 05/03/2020 12:26:59 PM PDT by IndispensableDestiny
But these arguments . . . are based on a flawed understanding of how flu deaths are counted, which may leave us with a distorted view of how coronavirus compares with it.
. . . it occurred to me that, in four years of emergency medicine residency and over three and a half years as an attending physician, I had almost never seen anyone die of the flu. I could only remember one tragic pediatric case.
The question remains. Can we accurately compare the toll of the flu to the toll of the coronavirus pandemic?
To do this, we have to compare counted deaths to counted deaths, not counted deaths to wildly inflated statistical estimates.
In the last six flu seasons, the CDC’s reported number of actual confirmed flu deaths . . . has ranged from 3,448 to 15,620
. . . we find that the novel coronavirus killed between 9.5 and 44 times more people than seasonal flu. In other words, the coronavirus is not anything like the flu: It is much, much worse.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.scientificamerican.com ...
So the Wuhan flu and the regular flu both use fake death counts.
It is comparing fake apples and fake oranges.
And comparing COVID-19 with the Spanish Flu is also apples and oranges!
The factor statisticians look at, if I understand correctly, is not “Did Covid19 kill this person”, but “Would they still be alive if they had not contracted it”. Not the same question.
36,000 a year die on the highways in the U.S.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm
The number that was most interesting was percent of expected deaths. Another numbers that should be reported % of hospital capacity % of ventilators in use
One of the deaths was a 93-year-old man with (as they said) pre-existing conditions. Um, being 93 is a pre-existing condition. Nobody gets to that age without having some health problems or deterioration of the body. They report this stuff as if a 93-year-old guy would still be alive for another 10 or 20 years if only the virus had come along. Possible, but highly unlikely.
you’re an arsem. right from the cdc sight from flu deaths for 2020 ...
24,000 – 62,000 flu deaths
So there are currently 956,000 Coronavirus cases in progress?
Nonsensical, generally.
Would normally be called conspiracy theory by SciAm.
Troof. Like comparing unicorns to smurfs. They're both just made up, so you can say anything you want. The CDC is a mouthpiece for the pharmaceutical industry. They manufacture numbers for whatever they're trying to sell.
The answer might be to compare mortality rates for similar populations during non-flu season.
Read the article - the numbers you quote are estimates.
“I had almost never seen anyone die of the flu”
has ever seen anybody die of the covid-19 with this same logic?
+1
“has ever seen anybody die of the covid-19 with this same logic?”
I think the “same logic” would mean asking people who’ve practiced medicine for 7.5 years, not “anybody”.
The bias and snowflake attitude of the author is clearly seen, even if he wants to disguise it. One (long) sentence is illustrative:
” While in the past it was justifiable to err on the side of substantially overestimating flu deaths, in order to encourage vaccination and good hygiene, at this point the CDC’s reporting about flu deaths is dangerously misleading the public and even public officials about the comparison between these two viruses.”
In other words, to this author it was fine to lie in order to hoodwink the populace about flu, flu shots, and the importance of the CDC’s know-it-alls and busy-bodies. But now, because those lies are not promoting their latest public policy (and subsequent POLITICAL) purposes, we have a whole new set of data, statistics, and damned lies to sell you.
Scientific American - another formerly great magazine now destined to the bottom of the bird cage.
How many of persons aged 85 YO and above who die are tested for the flu? About 1% of the entire US population dies each year.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.