Godstud wrote:It shows Covid deaths are far higher than flu deaths, in most cases, but I think you know that, already. You also seek to add lots of details instead of looking at the overall picture, in some attempt to downplay the virus.
Define "far higher than flu deaths"--53.2% of US states plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia and EU countries (minus Malta and Latvia, for which we don't have numbers for flu deaths) had more Wuhan virus deaths so far than the average flu season. 32.9% have had over twice as many deaths, 25.3% over three times. So no, I wouldn't say that Wuhan virus deaths have been
far higher in
most cases.
They say that sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees, but sometimes you can't see the trees for the forest. The simple fact is that for almost half of US states and EU countries, the number of deaths hasn't been any worse that the average flu season; for many of those nowhere close. Even for those that have had more deaths, for some it hasn't been that much more--Missouri, only 1.6% more; Alabama, +9.8%; Austria, +10.3%. But when calculating the overall numbers, places like the northeast in the US,where they've had five times and more the number of deaths than the average flue season; or Spain, Italy, or France, where they've had more than three times the number of deaths; can skew the total. The line for the median average falls on Nevada with +20%.
And while acknowledging that we aren't done yet so the percentages are going to continue rising for some time, and that the number of deaths are as low as they are because of how we crashed our economies, the insistence that we can't compare the two has a bit of a CYA feel to it--to avoid people saying, "we wrecked our economies for
this?"
Note that the average number of flu deaths is for the ten most recent years for which we have data.
Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
—Edmund Burke