Chat about Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV - COVID-19

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Adhiero

Interesting blog post in the Scientific American regarding how CDC annual flu death estimates are giving a false impression of COVID lethality.

The 25,000 to 69,000 numbers that Trump cited do not represent counted flu deaths per year; they are estimates that the CDC produces by multiplying the number of flu death counts reported by various coefficients produced through complicated algorithms. These coefficients are based on assumptions of how many cases, hospitalizations, and deaths they believe went unreported. In the last six flu seasons, the CDC’s reported number of actual confirmed flu deaths—that is, counting flu deaths the way we are currently counting deaths from the coronavirus—has ranged from 3,448 to 15,620, which far lower than the numbers commonly repeated by public officials and even public health experts.<

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/comparing-covid-19-deaths-to-flu-deaths-is-like-comparing-apples-to-oranges/

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badboybjorn in reply to @Adhiero

Thats pretty obvious as you dont test for the flu like u do for covid so to make a comparison only by numbers of ppl who tested possitive and then died for the 2 is completely useless.

The reason they have a calculated death for flu is because u dont test for it normally. Hence to compare the numbers as has been done is a lot more accurate than to compare the actual tested cases with the other. Its not unlikely that if corona is here to stay we may not test for that either in a few years time but have a calculated death (or so i would imagine if it becomes a part of the reccuring viruses)

Today it was reported that swedens health department think theres a big chance stockholm would achieve herd immunity allrdy in a month as they now believe only 40% of ppl infected would be needed vs the previous 60%. Dont know what changed this assumption but they would have tests next week to confirm the theory which hopefully is not disproved.

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Adhiero in reply to @badboybjorn

The reason they have a calculated death for flu is because u dont test for it normally. Hence to compare the numbers as has been done is a lot more accurate than to compare the actual tested cases with the other. <

Right, but one of the points the author is making is that using the cold numbers, without an explanation for how they come to those numbers, distorts the public perception of C19 vs. seasonal influenza. If people don’t even tangentially know someone who’s died of the flu, then it makes 60k deaths seem like not that many.

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