How does that compare with the seasonal flu?
According to a paper entitled Global mortality associated with seasonal influenza epidemics, authored by an international group headed by John Paget of the Netherlands Institute for Health Services, it compares rather modestly, although obviously the final total will be higher.
According to that paper, which was published last December, during the period 2002-2011:
an average of 389 000 (uncertainty range 294 000-518 000) respiratory deaths were associated with influenza globally each year during the study period, corresponding to ~ 2% of all annual respiratory deaths. Of these, 67% were among people 65 years and older.So the mortality due to the seasonal flu has averaged 0.05% of the world's population, versus Covid-19's toll thus far of just 0.03%. If the final toll for Covid-19 is twice the toll thus far, then, at 0.06% it will slightly exceed the estimated death toll from flu in the worst year during the period 2002-2011, but it will likely come far short of the worst flu seasons in living memory.
Among the most deadly flu seasons was the year of the Asian flu (1957/58) that killed 70,000 out of 149 million Americans for a death rate of 0.05%, and 1968, the year of the Hong Kong flu (H3N2 virus), which also killed about one out of every two thousand Americans. A final American death toll from Covid-19 of 0.05% would be 280,000, or almost four times the current total. To match the lethality of the Spanish flu of 1918, the death toll would have to be in excess of a million and a half.
Related:
Off Guardian: Britain's meaningless Covid-19 death stats
ZH: Unemployment Kills: The Longer Lockdowns Last, The Worse It Will Get
CNN: More than 370 workers at a pork plant in Missouri tested positive for coronavirus. All were asymptomatic
Forbes: Apple Data Shows Shelter-In-Place Is Ending, Whether Governments Want It To Or Not
Related:
Off Guardian: Britain's meaningless Covid-19 death stats
ZH: Unemployment Kills: The Longer Lockdowns Last, The Worse It Will Get
CNN: More than 370 workers at a pork plant in Missouri tested positive for coronavirus. All were asymptomatic
Forbes: Apple Data Shows Shelter-In-Place Is Ending, Whether Governments Want It To Or Not
We are soon going to find out if Ron Unz is indeed an honest man. If he is, he will have to apologize to his readership. He was part of what whipped people into a frenzy-- he contributed. So far, he is in denial. I saw where he awarded, to show his approval, a gold border around the comment of the a fool who continues to churn out the obviously false and discredited narrative of the pandemic.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first started to comment at Unz.com, I immediately got the response "You're the kind of person who goes around telling people 'this is just the flu.'" As if what I was saying was the most obviously stupid and irresponsible thing a person could be saying at that time. (There's a weird Politically Correct mentality at play in these people.) What was funny was I really hadn't thought at that time "it was just the flu" and I wasn't arguing it shouldn't be taken seriously. I was simply concerned that "the cure not be worse than the disease" as Trump himself said a little while later (and that apparently was enough to put me in the pro-Trump category, also the category of the stupid and obtuse, and a category I otherwise have not wished).
Now it emerges "it was just the flue." This has been the saddest hour in US history in terms of an open display of craven mass panic and hysteria. Wow. That this happened-- the damned lock downs are continuing, too-- I am only now beginning to let sink into my soul.
I agree.
DeleteIt may be a pretty bad flu, but it sure aint anything a biowarfare designer could be proud of. Killing your opponent's over 65's only relieves them of an economic burden.
But the official narrative seems increasingly difficult to sustain. The lock-downs will surely soon have to end. After that, lets hope there's a thorough review of what happened, why it happened, and how to make sure that no such comparably inappropriate response occurs in the future.