[krtong]

he's just pointing out that nobody writes the flu as the cause of death on a death certificate. The CDC simply releases estimates, while we've been tracking the severity of COVID-19 deaths by asking clinicians to write the cause of death as COVID-19 on the death certificate if they tested positive.

Patient has flu and dies of a stroke? Flu can increase the chance of stroke by 50% but the cause of death was the stroke, not the flu. Same thing happens to covid-19? They died of covid-19.

The point is that the data collection methods are so different there's no possible way you can really look at the numbers and tell if one kills more than the other.

[cm2187]

Your explaination seems sensible but I don't think this was the point that the author made. The way I read it was he meant that the CDC overestimates the number of flu deaths and therefore anyone thinking covid's lethality is comparable to flu is wrong as the flu kills a lot less.