[DanBC]

Can you point to data for a comparable really bad flu year?

Also, please can you post a link to the CDC document where the IFR is listed at 0.26%?

[mrfusion]

Here’s the CDC link: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...

I’ve seen stuff comparing it to the flu but I’ll have to dig around.

[mrfusion]

Here’s a flu comparison:

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseas...

In the U.S, 119,131 people have died of COVID-19, as of June 20, 2020.

In the U.S., from Oct. 1, 2019 – Apr. 4, 2020, the CDC estimates that 24,000 to 62,000 people died from the flu.

So I’d entertain the idea that COVID is 2-4 times worse than the Flu. (But you could imagine a bad flu season coming close to that.)

However Flu targets more young people so perhaps if we look at years of life lost that gap would close further.

[DanBC]

People comparing flu to covid need to be aware that sentences like this (from your Hopkins link) pack a lot of hidden stuff about the different ways of counting death:

> In the U.S., from Oct. 1, 2019 – Apr. 4, 2020, the CDC estimates that 24,000 to 62,000 people died from the flu. (The CDC does not know the exact number because the flu is not a reportable disease in most parts of the U.S.)

Those estimates are complex statistical modelling that use a combination of laboratory confirmed cases, death certificates, excess mortality, but also sampling of calls to primary care for flu like symptoms.

The Covid-19 deaths talked about on the Hopkins page are complex, but they come from states and many states are reporting deaths for people who were confirmed by testing to have had covid-19, or where covid-19 was listed as the cause of death (but not just listed) on the death certificate.