I just thought about it when reading a post on the Politics board that reminded me of something -- the number of people killed by the flu each year is actually quite small. The vast majority of all flu deaths are actually from opportunistic infections, not the flu.

Years ago, I was told that nobody dies from the flu itself, but I think that is wrong, but not by much. Most people die from opportunistic infections that strike when their immunity has been reduced from the flu.

Supposedly, many doctors have never seen someone die from the flu. How many doctors here have seen patients die from the flu that weren't actually from opportunistic infections?

There are no requirements to report flu deaths apart from deaths from opportunistic infections such as pneumonia. When we see that xx,000 people died from the flu this year, nearly all of those were from opportunistic infections, not the flu.

On the other hand, my impression is that most of the covid-19 deaths are directly from the covid-19, not from other causes.

The CDC requires data be collected and reported for Influenza-like illnesses, including influenza and pneumonia. In the 2019-2020 season, influenza was the cause of death for 9,169 people. That is separate from pneumonia. 183,683 persons died of pneumonia in the 2019-2020 season.

Do you have a link to this 9,169 value. I don't remember in recent years ever seeing it broken out. The CDC seems to always report the model driven Influenza burden number or Influenza and Pneumonia deaths together.

agforlife97 said:

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So how many of the flu deaths were actually from the flu instead of from opportunistic infections?

rudy99 said:

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eric76 said:

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agforlife97 said:

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So how many of the flu deaths were actually from the flu instead of from opportunistic infections?

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Probably on par with Covid

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I doubt that but cannot absolutely say it is wrong.

It would be surprising if some who have covid-19 didn't develop other infections able to develop because of the lowered immunity, but there is plenty of reason to believe that a great many of the covid-19 deaths were due to the virus itself and the body fighting that virus.

plain_o_llama said:

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Do you have a link to this 9,169 value. I don't remember in recent years ever seeing it broken out. The CDC seems to always report the model driven Influenza burden number or Influenza and Pneumonia deaths together.

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Sorry, wandered off...

Pneumonia and Influenza Mortality Surveillance from the National Center for Health Statistics Mortality Surveillance System

You can download spreadsheets and sum columns for this information.

If you compare 2019-2020 pneumonia season to earlier seasons, the numbers always start to drop in Week 8. This looked like a normal pneumonia season until Week 9. Unprecedented deaths after that. Roughly 45,000-50,000 more "pneumonia" deaths in the US from March through June than a bad pneumonia year (2017-2018 for example).

I don't think these excess pneumonia deaths are counted in the Covid-19 deaths.

WorthAg95 said:

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Thomas Ford 91 said:

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MaxPower said:

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eric76 said:

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agforlife97 said:

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So how many of the flu deaths were actually from the flu instead of from opportunistic infections?

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Are those numbers accurate? I think total deaths are. However, the mortality rate makes no sense. It says in 2019 roughly 31k positive tests yet 10k deaths. There's no way 1/3 of those who test positive with the flu die and wouldn't that death rate be 30+%?

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Those numbers are totally wrong. According to the CDC, in the 2018-2019 influenza season, 7,174 people died NATIONWIDE,

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https://www.dshs.state.tx.us/IDCU/disease/influenza/surveillance/2019.aspx
Open up the pdf and scroll down to page 5

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The tweet says "Flu". The chart on page 5 is "P&I", which is "Pneumonia & Influenza". Many more deaths when you combine them (175,756 nationwide).

MaxPower said:

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eric76 said:

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agforlife97 said:

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So how many of the flu deaths were actually from the flu instead of from opportunistic infections?

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Are those numbers accurate? I think total deaths are. However, the mortality rate makes no sense. It says in 2019 roughly 31k positive tests yet 10k deaths. There's no way 1/3 of those who test positive with the flu die and wouldn't that death rate be 30+%?

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I've had what appeared to be the flu several times but they never have actually tested to make sure that was what I had. It's quite possible that they don't actually test for the flu unless you are really sick.

terradactylexpress said:

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Unless you are young, immune compromised or old would you even get a flu test?

When our baby was sick (2ish) the doc said that they usually don't bother with the flu test due to accuracy and just prescribed Tamiflu

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Yup. If you have a flu like illness during flu season, you are assumed to have the flu. Most people don't test unless they want to appease a patient's desire to spend more money, or they don't want to prescribe tamiflu without a test.

It's also my understanding that the 30,000-60,000 people they say die each year from the flu aren't from actual positive tests, but rather an approximation based off of people's symptoms (and as mentioned above, it's whenever the flu was a contributing cause and not necessarily the actual cause). You can't take those assumed to have the flu, and compare it those who actually tested positive for covid. You need to either compare only those who tested positive (which would drastically lower the number of flu deaths) or compare those who are presumed to have the disease (which would greatly raise the number of covid deaths).

I do believe our reaction to this is greatly overblown, but the way people just post numbers without validating and understanding them really bothers me.

Dr. Not Yet Dr. Ag said:

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People really need to stop reposting that chart. Those numbers are not just influenza deaths, they include ALL PNEUMONIA deaths, as well, which is a very common cause of death independent of influenza, in fact, significantly more common cause. If those numbers were to be believed, the entire state of Texas would have 1/3rd of the entire country's deaths from flu in 18-19, which should obviously make anyone skeptical.

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Which numbers should we be skeptical about, the TxDSHS figures or the national figures?

Yeah, but are t they counting pneumonia deaths, caused by COVID, in the Covid death count also?

Quote:

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So how many of the flu deaths were actually from the flu instead of from opportunistic infections?

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Think of the flu as the "root cause" here. If not for A then B doesn't happen.

He's right you know.

Dr. Not Yet Dr. Ag said:

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People really need to stop reposting that chart. Those numbers are not just influenza deaths, they include ALL PNEUMONIA deaths, as well, which is a very common cause of death independent of influenza, in fact, significantly more common cause. If those numbers were to be believed, the entire state of Texas would have 1/3rd of the entire country's deaths from flu in 18-19, which should obviously make anyone skeptical.

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So whether that graphic is misleading or not, it's really not as big a gaffe to compare covid to a bad flu year as many experts and expert jock sniffers pretend it is. The IFR for covid is likely to be in the 0.26% range when it's all said and done and maybe lower, which is in the range of a bad flu or at least a pandemic flu year like we saw in the 50's or 60's. Now yes, covid is more contagious, no question. But analogies are imperfect. The definition of analogy is "a thing which is comparable to something else in significant respects." Covid is certainly more similar to the flu than it is to say, Ebola. What else can you really compare it to? Also, the purpose of these comparisons is to put relative risk in perspective, which seems to just go over all the heads of the coronabros. No one in the US pays any mind to the flu season at all, yet thousands die each year. That's the point. We regularly flout riskier things than covid every day, things like driving or even being struck by lightning. The panic is misplaced, and either shows massive ignorance of relative risk, or simply that many people are just very fragile psychologically.

I've never died of the flu

Imagine a virus so deadly you had to get tested to find out if you had it