Great opinion piece explaining why the comparison of #covid19 and #influenza mortality rates are flawed in many ways by @jeremyfaust (1)
THREAD:
jamanetwork.com/journals/jamai…
THREAD:
jamanetwork.com/journals/jamai…
Influenza deaths are commonly estimated, whereas #covid19 deaths are counted. Would be more correct to compare counted #covid19 deaths to counted #influenza deaths. (2)
The reported number of counted deaths due to #covid19 during week ending April 14 was 14,478. The mean counted number of #influenza deaths during peak weeks of last 7 seasons was 752.4 on average. That‘s a 20.5-fold increase! (4)
For the current #influenza season, the counted number of #covid19 deaths exceed the number of counted #influenza deaths 14.4-fold. (5)
At present, #diamondprincess cruise ship outbreak is one of few situation where complete data of exposed, cases and deaths is available. Case fatality rate was 1.8%. However, passengers were rather old. Adjusted for age, CFR was 0.5%. Still 5 times higher than that of influenza!
@threadreaderapp unroll
