From: CDC
Many people have sought to compare coronavirus to seasonal flu, but without the hard stats.
In fact, the statistics are a moving target. For one, people can get flu year round, but peak flu season is over, according to CDC. Coronavirus has not yet peaked in the U.S., says CDC. Since coronavirus is an unknown entity, its numbers could theoretically overtake those of flu. Therefore, current comparisons measure several months of a flu season against a coronavirus outbreak for which a “season” or peak is as yet undetermined.
Also, coronavirus is likely far more prevalent than implied by official case counts based on positive tests, since many people are not getting tested for coronavirus.
Scientists say there are many similarities between flu and coronavirus (see chart below), but one difference is a longer possible incubation period for coronavirus. Another involves severe respiratory symptoms. They can come from both flu and coronavirus, but are believed to be more common with coronavirus.
In any event, considering the high toll the flu takes on American society each year, I asked CDC why there is no similar response and preventive campaign, such as quarantines. The question and answer are below:
Sharyl Attkisson: Why do we not take these measures each year for flu to prevent all of those deaths?
CDC: This is a novel virus and there is much more to learn about transmissibility, severity, and other features associated with COVID-19. Unlike influenza, there is no vaccine to protect against COVID-19 and no medications approved to treat it. And there’s essentially no immunity against this virus in the population because it’s a new virus. Mortality for COIVD-19 also appears higher than for influenza, especially seasonal flu – so it’s important that everyone do their part to help respond to this emerging public health threat.
With all of that in mind, here are the numbers as of Sunday, March 22:
US Deaths
- Coronavirus: 417*
- Flu Season 2019-2020: 23,000**
*https://sharylattkisson.com/2020/03/new-the-first-59-u-s-coronavirus-deaths-by-state-and-age/
**From: CDC.gov
U.S. Deaths Among Children
- Coronavirus: 0
- Flu Season 2019-2020: 149*
*From: CDC.gov
U.S. Cases of Illness
- Coronavirus: 33,276*
- Flu Season 2019-2020: 38,000,000**
*Retrieved Sun. March 22: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
**From: CDC.gov
Global Deaths
- Coronavirus: 15,436*
- Flu Season 2019-2020: 290,000-650,000**
*https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html retrieved Sun. March 22
**World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the flu kills 290,000 to 650,000 people per year.
“COVID-19 and flu share some similar symptoms.”
I have been reading the comments from both sides of the political influence in the USA Republican and democrat. Sadly republicans/white Christian’s, people through their leadership from the past administration have a negative agenda on regards to science and containment of the COVID 19 virus. Democrats have been all to quiet about it and maybe that is a strategy that needs to change for more education in regards to the current epidemic.
Psychologically it appears that republicans are willing to sacrifice an amount of people because they think that this virus cane defeated by just keeping borders and corporations working. The lack of understanding about viruses causes these emotional outburst of keeping the country open and taking the loss of life as necessary to overcome the virus. Nothing could be more wrong than that kind of attitude, and thinking. It is true that herd immunity would have saved a lot of lives but many fear a vaccine and create lies and propaganda against it because it doesn’t fit their agenda to discredit the current administration in the White House. So these politically deranged are willing to sacrifice the lives of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of humans to promote their negative agenda. That transcends the political realm and moves into the self destruction.
I agree that a more aggressive education agenda on regards to the understanding of the virus and it’s variations, the different vaccines and their effect in helping humans against the virus, would contribute to stop politicizing this pandemic.
It is time to see that this retrovirus known as COVID 19 kills and it kills by the millions once a new strain develops because some idiot doesn’t want to prevent its deadly spreading. The flu can kill people who are very I’ll or who are extremely susceptible, but COVID 19 is a more deadly killer that will continue to develop into something worse.
So instead of continuing to put a message of Arian proportions in the USA to comeback after it was put down during WWII, try to open your minds to change and to living in a more tolerant world, embracing each race as your own. Because like it or not we all bleed red, we are all humans.
It is August 2021 and I just read this report.
Is there a follow-up report on this? If so, please email it to me or its location.
Much appreciated.
We’re now into July. Time has proven this is all a huge hoax. There is not one published study showing a virus has been isolated to cause this disease. Yet, tyrants all over the globe quarantine the healthy and entire populations have been decimated because they can not get food. Civil war is set to begin.
As you said it’s a moving situation and should be updated lets say in May, But where we are now it doesn’t take Common core Math to show that Covid-19 is very serious
In the US as of right now 562,742 confirmed cases with 2,849,000 tests , 22,,163 deaths in the US.
The Flu 39 Million cases and 24,000 deaths., Based on that we will eclipse the Flu related deaths before even hitting 1 Million. Even using the 60,000 potential deaths from Flu related deaths. based on 39 Million it’s clear this new Virus is headed to being deadlier .
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/?fbclid=IwAR2WOSQ7dGV34ymov73zy9GVOfTTfGMWddL3syLwz_wqYLkKDf2TrM9dEHo
Source info
Looks like you’re comparing total number of confirmed, lab-tested cases of COVID-19 to population projections of influenza. This is an apples and oranges comparison. The same CDC page you cite seems to indicate about 300k confirmed, lab-tested cases of influenza for the entirety of the 2019-2020 flu season (from late September to now). Compare this to the 30k results you showed for about two months of COVID-19 (btw this is up to 100k as of this morning).
Now also remember that it’s easier and faster to test for flu than coronavirus, and that coronavirus has a much longer incubation period, and it seems obvious why this is being treated differently.
Yes the confusion comes in some ways because public health officials are using confirmed cases to calculate death rate of coronavirus (making it much larger) but are usually not stating this part of the equation. Right now, as I note in the story, there are no figures to do apples to apples. But since people are asking about how many died of flu etc. compared to coronavirus (so far) this is what the govt. has provided to date. It will change. (As noted).
You cdc souse says 79,000 deaths form 2017-18. CDC site now says 61,000. Am I missing something?
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2017-2018.htm
Sheryl ~ You might want to look into the flu numbers before and after 2015. This is when the CDC began combining flu deaths with pneumonia deaths. The actual flu death numbers are quite low, the vast majority are pneumonia related.
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/vaccine-safety/the-cdc-influenza-math-doesnt-add-up-exaggerating-death-toll-to-sell-flu-shots/
Marc V.
Very important to note! Also we should note that most doctors do not perform a lab test to confirm influenza. It could be assumed that far less than 38 million people actually had influenza.
A study conducted by The International Journal for Infectious Disease in Italy from 2013-2017 found higher rates of infection and mortality as compared to it’s neighboring countries. The questions is, “How many of the infections/deaths reported out of Italy by WHO/CDC are due to seasonal flu and NOT CV as we are led to believe?”
Makes you wonder about CV stats for USA.
Here is the link to the study for those interested in learning more:
https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(19)30328-5/fulltext
You can also download a PDF copy of the study from the above link.
We will certainly die from starvation when we cant feed ourselves.
OPEN OUR COUNTRY!!