COVID-19 KILLS 20 TIMES MORE PEOPLE PER WEEK ON AVERAGE THAN FLU, SCIENTISTS ESTIMATE
COVID-19 kills 20 times more people per week on average than the flu at its peak, say scientists who stress public figures who argue it is "just another flu" are approaching the available data incorrectly.
In an article published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, Dr. Jeremy Samuel Faust of Harvard Medical School's Brigham and Women's Hospital and Dr. Carlos del Rio of Emory University School of Medicine explained why it is misleading to compare the COVID-19 death toll in the U.S. so far with the seasonal death toll of flu. Instead, they argue, weekly figures are a better point of comparison.
"Yet public officials continue to draw comparisons between seasonal influenza and SARS-CoV-2 [coronavirus] mortality, often in an attempt to minimize the effects of the unfolding pandemic," they wrote. President Donald Trump has, for instance, in the past compared the coronavirus to the flu, arguing "we've never closed down the country for the flu," while Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has called the coronavirus a "little flu."
Public officials may lack an understanding of how seasonal flu and COVID-19 data is publicly reported, the pair said. Similarly to other public health agencies, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shares information on cases and deaths caused by seasonal flu as an estimate based on the International Classification of Diseases codes medical classification list, not as raw data as is done with COVID-19.
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