Posted on 03/18/2020 6:41:31 AM PDT by McGruff
The CDC estimates that so far this season there have been at least 22,000 deaths, 36 million flu illnesses, 370,000 hospitalizations.
The 2019-2020 influenza outbreak is moderate to low in overall severity, but hospitalization rates are high among children and young adults.
“Rates for children 0-4 years and adults 18-49 years are now the highest CDC has on record for these age groups, surpassing rates reported during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic,” the agency said.
The CDC projects flu activity to remain elevated throughout this month.
Flu activity was high in Puerto Rico and 41 states. It was moderate in Ohio and New Hampshire. It was low in the District of Columbia, Alaska, Delaware, Idaho and Nevada.
Only minimal amounts of flu were reported in Arizona, Florida and Wyoming.
(Excerpt) Read more at 13abc.com ...
it’s not the flu, oh wait...
I suppose far fewer who have flu need respirators?
The dead don’t.
Maybe the flu numbers will drop.
Now if this article doesn’t put this COV-19 reaction into perspective for you unwashed nothing will . I am all for being stringent about commonly used areas being cleaned and sanitized for the benefit of all and getting upcoming generations accustomed to being neat and thinking of the person coming behind them but , I am of the opinion that the almost complete shutdown of every public gathering spot for 30 or more days is excessive and negates the option of small PRIVATE businesses to adapt to a protocol that allows them to stay open so we don’t have a complete disruption as is now the case .
Good article in the same vain. Just listened to him talking with Gallagher on Salem broadcasting:
These are estimates because only a few hundred cases per year are tested specifically for flu viruses. The methodology assigns the flu as a cause for a certain number of pneumonia-related deaths. The multiplier used is literally 100x the number of cases tested specifically for the flu. Whereas every recorded covid-19 death has been tested specifically for the specific viral complex. It’s possible that many deaths recorded as flu-related at the end of the year will actually be covid-19 related.
Sounds like the scumedia is mixing apples and oranges to get the numbers up and the deaths up and the hysteria up.
All this “social distancing” may have just stopped a major influenza surge.
In light of President’s Trump’s daily warnings, why on earth would you continue to press on with “it’s just the flu” mantra?
There are people who disagree with the CDC’s annual flu estimate methodology. I think the biggest issue is that many of the people who died from other causes that the CDC assigned to the flu may not have needed ventilators (for oxygen), which is why Italy was completely unprepared, equipment-wise and had to resort to triage, i.e. denying oxygen to the elderly with pre-existing conditions. Given that human beings can survive for 3 minutes at best without oxygen, this was a death sentence for many coronavirus patients with pneumonia.
The CDC website states what has become commonly accepted and widely reported in the lay and scientific press: annually “about 36 000 [Americans] die from flu” (www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease.htm) and “influenza/pneumonia” is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States (www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htm). But why are flu and pneumonia bundled together? Is the relationship so strong or unique to warrant characterizing them as a single cause of death? David Rosenthal, director of Harvard University Health Services, said, “People don’t necessarily die, per se, of the [flu] virus—the viraemia. What they die of is a secondary pneumonia. So many of these pneumonias are not viral pneumonias but secondary [pneumonias].” But Dr Rosenthal agreed that the flu/pneumonia relationship was not unique. For instance, a recent study (JAMA 2004;292: 1955-60[Abstract/Free Full Text]) found that stomach acid suppressing drugs are associated with a higher risk of community acquired pneumonia, but such drugs and pneumonia are not compiled as a single statistic. CDC states that the historic 1968-9 “Hong Kong flu” pandemic killed 34 000 Americans. At the same time, CDC claims 36 000 Americans annually die from flu. What is going on?
Meanwhile, according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), “influenza and pneumonia” took 62 034 lives in 2001—61 777 of which were attributed to pneumonia and 257 to flu, and in only 18 cases was flu virus positively identified. Between 1979 and 2002, NCHS data show an average 1348 flu deaths per year (range 257 to 3006). The NCHS data would be compatible with CDC mortality estimates if about half of the deaths classed by the NCHS as pneumonia were actually flu initiated secondary pneumonias. But the NCHS criteria indicate otherwise: “Cause-of-death statistics are based solely on the underlying cause of death... defined by WHO as `the disease or injury which initiated the train of events leading directly to death.’” In a written statement, CDC media relations responded to the diverse statistics: “Typically, influenza causes death when the infection leads to severe medical complications.” And as most such cases “are never tested for virus infection...CDC considers these [NCHS] figures to be a very substantial undercounting of the true number of deaths from influenza. Therefore, the CDC uses indirect modelling methods to estimate the number of deaths associated with influenza.” CDC’s model calculated an average annual 36 155 deaths from influenza associated underlying respiratory and circulatory causes (JAMA 2003;289: 179-86[Abstract/Free Full Text]). Less than a quarter of these (8097) were described as flu or flu associated underlying pneumonia deaths. Thus the much publicised figure of 36 000 is not an estimate of yearly flu deaths, as widely reported in both the lay and scientific press, but an estimate—generated by a model—of flu-associated death. William Thompson of the CDC’s National Immunization Program (NIP), and lead author of the CDC’s 2003 JAMA article, explained that “influenza-associated mortality” is “a statistical association between deaths and viral data available.” He said that an association does not imply an underlying cause of death: “Based on modelling, we think it’s associated. I don’t know that we would say that it’s the underlying cause of death.” Yet this stance is incompatible with the CDC assertion that the flu kills 36 000 people a year—a misrepresentation that is yet to be publicly corrected. Before 2003 CDC said that 20 000 influenza-associated deaths occurred each year. The new figure of 36 000 reported in the January 2003 JAMA paper is an estimate of influenza-associated mortality over the 1990s. Keiji Fukuda, a flu researcher and a co-author of the paper, has been quoted as offering two possible causes for this 80% increase: “One is that the number of people older than 65 is growing larger...The second possible reason is the type of virus that predominated in the 1990s [was more virulent].” However, the 65-plus population grew just 12% between 1990 and 2000. And if flu virus was truly more virulent over the 1990s, one would expect more deaths. But flu deaths recorded by the NCHS were on average 30% lower in the 1990s than the 1980s.
At the 2004 “National Influenza Vaccine Summit,” co-sponsored by CDC and the American Medical Association, Glen Nowak, associate director for communications at the NIP, spoke on using the media to boost demand for the vaccine. One step of a “Seven-Step `Recipe’ for Generating Interest in, and Demand for, Flu (or any other) Vaccination” occurs when “medical experts and public health authorities publicly...state concern and alarm (and predict dire outcomes)—and urge influenza vaccination” (www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/36/2004_flu_nowak.pdf). Another step entails “continued reports...that influenza is causing severe illness and/or affecting lots of people, helping foster the perception that many people are susceptible to a bad case of influenza.” Preceding the summit, demand had been low early into the 2003 flu season. “At that point, the manufacturers were telling us that they weren’t receiving a lot of orders for vaccine for use in November or even December,” recalled Dr Nowak on National Public Radio. “It really did look like we needed to do something to encourage people to get a flu shot.” If flu is in fact not a major cause of death, this public relations approach is surely exaggerated. Moreover, by arbitrarily linking flu with pneumonia, current data are statistically biased. Until corrected and until unbiased statistics are developed, the chances for sound discussion and public health policy are limited.
I am a pediatrician and this propaganda affects my practice directly.
Kenneth Stoller
International Hyperbaric Medical Association]
Flu cases dropped dramatically in Hong Kong after they started taking precautions against COVID-19 - so yes, the overall effect will be beneficial.
And this 22,000 is among the entire 300+ million population. The coronavirus I was affected a incredibly small portion of the American population but is killing a bunch a higher percentage. These are not comparable except if you considerExtrapolating full exposure of the American population, which should lead to 10 times or more as many deaths. It is good that we are trying to control it
Italy was unprepared because the Chicoms lied. Had they reported the true numbers you can bet the Italians would not have sat around with hundreds of thousands of Chinese from Wuhan in the Milan area spreading the Wu Flu in Lombardy. There is no other similar situation in the world.
Not a shred of hysteria over the regular flu but 69 die of corona and the country shuts down.
A novel virus is a magnitude different then human influence, but what do facts matter.
The possibility of declining and not resurging is posited in Taleb’s critique of the Imperial College modeling. However, to eliminate the fat tail type event will require door to door monitoring, almost perfect contact tracing from those infected, isolation and extensive testing.
We are not doing those things (China and esp. Singapore, Taiwan, etc. did). Again facts don’t seem to matter.
Finally check out what happened yesterday in NY viz a viz growth and hospital/medical care in real time. Why do you think Cuomo is being so nice to Trump? He is scared poop less that is why. And you know what? He should be.
[Italy was unprepared because the Chicoms lied. Had they reported the true numbers you can bet the Italians would not have sat around with hundreds of thousands of Chinese from Wuhan in the Milan area spreading the Wu Flu in Lombardy. There is no other similar situation in the world.]
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/16/the-chinese-workers-who-assemble-designer-bags-in-tuscany
https://www.distancefromto.net/distance-from-wuhan-cn-to-wenzhou-cn
https://www.distancefromto.net/distance-from-new-york-to-cleveland-oh-us
Probably fewer barriers to travel in the EU than in China, which has a burdensome internal passport system. In EU terms, it’s like the distance from Milan to Paris.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou
https://www.distancefromto.net/between/Paris/Milan
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