The Flu does NOT kill 36,000-80,000 Americans a Year -- The CDC's Own Data Shows This

[Op-ed Daily]

https://op-edaily.medium.com/the-flu-does-not-kill-36-000-80-000-americans-a-year-no-1e363f4f07da

Of the 55,672 alleged Influenza & Pneumonia deaths reported, only 6,515 of them were from the flu.

CDC does not know the exact number of people who have been sick and affected by influenza because influenza is not a reportable disease in most areas of the United States.

I would like to point out that I wrote this article because of the "COVID is just a flu" crowd. I got tired of explaining this to everyone each time it came up, so I wrote an article so that I could just link to it. lol (pure laziness)

Also, COVID is reported as actual numbers, both deaths and hospitalizations, but the flu is not and the CDC uses an algorithm to come up with their numbers.

[LizBeth]

1. I read not quite 13k 2018 and 16k 2019. Until google started missing with info like often happens.

I can find info at the start them seems stuff is manipulated.

[Iggo]

2. I'm glad all those people didn't die.

Phew!

That's a load off of my mind.

[Op-ed Daily]

3. Maybe you missed the point.

CDC keeps telling us 10s of thousands die every year, but that's simply not true.

Makes it easier for people to claim COVID is "just a flu," when the reality is much different than that. In fact, I wrote the article BECAUSE of the "just a flu" crowd.

Anyway, your response still made me chuckle.

[BGBD]

4. Wow.....

This is the exact same reasoning that people use to say Covid isn't killing that many people.

[Op-ed Daily]

6. Well, that argument is easily debunked, though

COVID deaths are reported directly, as actual numbers of deaths.

Flu stats are created based on some wonky algorithm because flu hospitalizations, deaths, etc. are not a reported issue directly to the CDC ... or at least there's no mandate for it, so most hospitals won't.

[NutmegYankee]

7. No, the CDC estimates and also counts those weakened but not actually killed by flu.

The hard numbers they have for each year are below 15,000. Hard numbers on COVID-19 are 260,000 plus. It shows how much more deadly this disease really is.

[pnwmom]

14. No, it's not. The high number we see are a result of lumping in all pneumonia deaths with flu deaths

But there are many pneumonia deaths that have NOTHING to do with influenza.

Only the pneumonia deaths that are CAUSED by influenza should be included, but for some reason they just lump them together -- which makes it appear that there are far more flu deaths than there really are.

[BGBD]

15. No, thats not it..

[pnwmom]

16. It's true. Influenza is only ONE cause of pneumonia. Covid is another cause.

Bacterial infections are another cause.

Deaths from pneumonia happen year around, not just during flu season, and not just as a result of flu.

[BGBD]

20. But

Thats not how they estimate flu deaths.

[pnwmom]

21. It's how they report annual flu deaths. Influenza/ pneumonia, together.

A physician addresses the Dept. of Health and Human Services:

https://aspe.hhs.gov/cdc-%E2%80%94-influenza-deaths-request-correction-rfc

The CDC website states what has become commonly accepted and widely reported in the lay and scientific press: annually "about 36 000 [Americans] die from flu" (www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease.htm) and "influenza/pneumonia" is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States (www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htm). But why are flu and pneumonia bundled together? Is the relationship so strong or unique to warrant characterizing them as a single cause of death? David Rosenthal, director of Harvard University Health Services, said, "People don't necessarily die, per se, of the [flu] virus—the viraemia. What they die of is a secondary pneumonia. So many of these pneumonias are not viral pneumonias but secondary [pneumonias]." But Dr Rosenthal agreed that the flu/pneumonia relationship was not unique. For instance, a recent study (JAMA 2004;292: 1955-60[Abstract/Free Full Text]) found that stomach acid suppressing drugs are associated with a higher risk of community acquired pneumonia, but such drugs and pneumonia are not compiled as a single statistic. CDC states that the historic 1968-9 "Hong Kong flu" pandemic killed 34 000 Americans. At the same time, CDC claims 36 000 Americans annually die from flu. What is going on?

[Op-ed Daily]

19. Exactly and I have a feeling it serves a singular purpose ...

To sell the flu vaccine.

[Ms. Toad]

22. No, it's not.

There are (at least) three differences:

1. The flu is viral and can only days viral pneumonia (as a secondary infections). The CDC data lumps both viral and pneumonia as flu deaths.
2. COVID includes pneumonia as part of the disease. Pneumonia is a secondary disease to flu (i.e it is not part of the flu - it is something that you are more likely to get it you have the flu
3. The arguments for reducing COVID deaths was based on completely unrelated complexities listed on the death certificate (diabetes, cancer, etc.). The FED doesn't have access to the death certificates of those who died from the flu - those deaths have always been estimates. This opinion piece challenges the basis of the estimates. In contrast, those trying to knock down COVID deaths are attacking confirmed Deaths in which a comparability is listed on the death certificate as potentially playing a role.


Not the same thing at all, although there is a superficial similarity. But it is just that - a superficial similarity.

[BGBD]

23. Flu can

Cause viral pneumonia and lead to bacterial pneumonia as well. Bacterial pneumonia was the leading mechanism of death in the 1919 pandemic. So your first point is wrong on its face.

Secondly, yes they do have access to death certificates including those from flu. However, those death certificates are only a small part of the model used to estimate flu deaths each year. Both death certificates and reported lab confirmed flu deaths are vast underestimates.

[Ms. Toad]

24. Viral peumonia can be a catalyst for pneumonia, but pneumonia is not paft of influenza.

But COVID doesn't CAUSE pneumoia; pneumonia is part and parcel of the disease itself. That's the difference between a primary and secondary disease. It is part of the primary disease in COVID; it is a secondary disease in pneumonia.

As to the second point - you're making the same point I did. Pneumonia deaths have never been specifically tracked - they have always been an estimate. COVID has been specificaly tracked from the beginning.

It is a dramatically different thing to attempt to remove deaths that have been specifically attributed to COVID 19 by saying let's attribute them to a pre-existing, underlying, comorbidity, than to challenge the basis on which flu deaths have been estimated based on classifying all pheumonia deaths to influenza.

[BGBD]

25. This is a distinction without a difference.

In both cases, the patient wouldn't be dead if they hadn't contracted the specific virus. People who die of a secondary pneumonia, caused by flu, should clearly be considered flu deaths.

[Ms. Toad]

26. The problem with that reasoning is the more significant second reason.

Using a pneumonia death as a stand-in for influenza (whether or not there was any indication that the person had influenza in the first place) for the purpose of estimating flu deaths is not the same thing as identifying flu as a cause of death when pneumonia (which actually caused the flu) followed the flu.

The most significant difference between the two arguments is that deaths from flu has always been an estimate - based, in part, on using pneumonia as a stand-in for counting influenza deaths.

COVID 19, on the other hand, is based on actual deaths from COVID 19, most documented at the time of death, with a much smaller percentage documented no more than 7 months after death. (I've beeen tracking the deaths attributed to COVID 19. It is rare for deaths to be added more than 2 months back - none have been added more than 7 months after the fact.)

The editorial argues that the basis for making estimates of influenza deaths is flawed because there is no confirmation that many of the people whose deaths are attributed to the flu actually even had the flu, let alone died from it. Essentially the estimates are based on the flawed assumption that the vast majority of people who died from pneumonia had influenza which caused the flu.

In COVID 19, each death is documented based on set, pretty strict, criteria for identifying who had COVID 19. There was one significant change in identifying COVID 19 (antigen tests, symptoms without a positive test + stong indications of COVID base on known exposure + no other explanation) which added a significant number of cases which met the new, limited criteria. The aguments that COVID did not kill all those people are based not on the fact that they are estimates based on a flawed premise, but on the fact that the death certificate listed a co-morbidity.

Those are two dramatically different arguments.

[JCMach1]

28. You can use the term pneumonia, but from my personal experience that term is

Meaningless. I have had pneumonia (both types) on several occasions in my life. Covid pneumonia IS NOT like those at all.

For me it was literally sitting in a hospital bed as you feel you lung cells die... Die... and you gradually lose any ability to breathe like a light going out.

[Ms. Toad]

30. That's part of the reason I'm making a distinction.

It is pneumonia - but pneumonia is largely a description of symptoms - an infection that causes the lungs to fill with fluid.

So with COVID 19 it is one of the many symptoms caused by the coronavirus. The name for the symptom of fluid filled lungs is pneumonia (regardless of the cause) - but the COVID pneumonia is a particularly brutal pneumonia.

Most people with viral or bacterial pneumonia, secondary to influenza, have a much easier time. And pneumonia is not a symptom of influenza; it is a secondary viral or bacterial infection that takes advantage of the havok wreaked by influenza.

[NutmegYankee]

5. This is true. Connecticut has robust reporting and flu kills less than 100 most years.

Even the worst events are less than 200. Contrast that with 5000 COVID-19 deaths and rising.

[intheflow]

8. But isn't this a little bit like saying "Gramma didn't die from Covid,

she died of pneumonia!" I mean, if no one tracks flu cases, how do you know those pneumonia deaths weren't caused by a strain of influenza?

[Op-ed Daily]

13. If you read the article, that question would have been answered

ALL pneumonia deaths are included into the flu number. The most common cause of pneumonia is bacterial, not viral, and there are more than a dozen viruses that can result in pneumonia, flu being only one of them and not necessarily the most common viral cause.

[pnwmom]

17. Some pneumonia deaths are caused by influenza, but others are caused by other viruses,

such as Covid, by bacterial infections, etc.

[TexasBushwhacker]

31. And pneumonia is a complication of many illnesses

especially among the elderly.

[KayF]

9. because they are estimates doesn't mean it's not true

here is some good info on how and why the CDC reports estimates of this data:

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/how-cdc-estimates.htm

Why doesn’t CDC base its seasonal flu mortality estimates only on death certificates that specifically list influenza?

Seasonal influenza may lead to death from other causes, such as pneumonia, congestive heart failure, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. It has been recognized for many years that influenza is underreported on death certificates. There may be several reasons for underreporting, including that patients aren’t always tested for seasonal influenza virus infection, particularly older adults who are at greatest risk of seasonal influenza complications and death. Even if a patient is tested for influenza, influenza virus infection may not be identified because the influenza virus is only detectable for a limited number of days after infection and many people don’t seek medical care in this interval. Additionally, some deaths – particularly among those 65 years and older – are associated with secondary complications of influenza (including bacterial pneumonias). For these and other reasons, modeling strategies are commonly used to estimate flu-associated deaths. Only counting deaths where influenza was recorded on a death certificate would be a gross underestimation of influenza’s true impact.

[BGBD]

10. Exactly

[Op-ed Daily]

11. Except that in every instance of direct reporting of flu deaths

There are merely hundreds of them and not "thousands," as pointed out in the article.

Besides - let's assume it's 100% accurate: 6.5k people die of the flu every year. Do you think there's a big difference between the 30k-80k they always claim publicly and 6.5k? Of course, that's assuming their "estimates" are fact, as you've suggested.

7k people die every year due to medication errors, which is an issue because often doctors' handwriting is illegible and the Pharmacist and/nurse didn't bother to double-check. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1117251/

So, yeah, even if those estimates are correct, you'd have to admit only 6.5k died from the flu. If you're suggesting that we'd have to believe 36-80k die a year, well that's called assumption.

[Op-ed Daily]

12. Oh, and by the way

The article links to their methods. You apparently didn't read the article and ran with your post anyway.

[Silent3]

18. Even without good numbers to go on, some things are very clear

There is no sign whatsoever that hospitals become highly stressed by the flu, or even modestly stressed, in the worst flu seasons.

It's abundantly clear that even in the worst flu seasons, funeral homes haven't become backed up beyond capacity, and hospitals haven't come close to needing refrigerated trucks to store all the bodies of the dead.

These things alone should make it blindingly obvious COVID is far more serious than the flu, unless you go all the way back in time to 1918.

[Squinch]

27. Here's an article in Scientific American by an ER doc that indicates there are serious

problems with the CDCs annual estimates of flu deaths. They appear to be wildly overinflated.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/comparing-covid-19-deaths-to-flu-deaths-is-like-comparing-apples-to-oranges/

On the other hand, given the deaths this year and their comparisons to the same time in other years, it appears that the COVID deaths are, if anything, greatly underreported.

[JCMach1]

29. No shock there either... Severe Covid typically comes with a brain fog/dementia

That doesn't allow you to think straight even to call an ambulance, or see a doctor.

Plus, unless you have an oximeter, you may not know when your oxygen crashes. If it does and you don't make it to the hospital,you just simply won't make it.

[MineralMan]

32. The Right-Wingers Are Using the Same Argument to Deny COVID-19

as the cause of death in many cases. They are denying that CV-19 is as dangerous as it is. If a person catches the flu and then pneumonia as a complication of the flu, you seem to be using the same argument as the COVID-deniers are using.

Many people die from pneumonia as a complication of contracting the flu. If they have the flu and then get pneumonia as a sequel, the flu is a contributing cause of their deaths.

Denialism is denialism.