Thread by @kylamb8

Did Anthony Fauci lie when he said more children have died from the virus than ever have died from the flu? Unless you think he's an incompetent boob that didn't learn a thing in 50 years in public health (hold the jokes please), then yes. And I will demonstrate that here.

So far, there have been 439 deaths of children ages 0-17 *with* COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. Remember, this is over 20 months -- the first of many important qualifiers.

2/3

From the CDC Wonder database, for multiple cause of death, here are the number of deaths ages 0-17 with flu for ICD-10 codes J09-J11 for types of influenza by year 2010-19.

So Fauci was telling the truth, right? Hold up. No, not even close.

3/4

COVID-19 deaths are capturing almost every COVID-induced illness in the past year because every kid is being tested that goes into a hospital, and it's overcounting because any kid that dies with a positive test is a multiple cause COVID death.

4/5

Flu, on the other hand, isn't counted that way. If we tested every kid in the hospital during flu season and counted every kid dying with the flu as dying from the flu, numbers would be insane.

CDC knows this. They know the real count is much higher.

5/6

To illustrate, let's use CDC estimated flu burden.

In the 2012-13 flu season, for instance, the CDC estimates that the flu caused 1,161 deaths *from* the flu. Remember there are 439 COVID-19 deaths in 20 months.

6/7

cdc.gov/flu/about/burd…

A lesser but still deadlier 2017-18 flu season is estimated to have caused 643 deaths for ages 0-17.

While official flu deaths are clearly significant undercounts, COVID-19 deaths are known overcounts.

7/8

Since 2010-11, here are the estimates of actual flu-caused death counts in the U.S. for 0-17 based on CDC figures.

2010-11 352
2012-13 1,161
2013-14 130
2014-15 803
2015-16 268
2016-17 251
2017-18 643
2018-19 477
2019-20 434

8/9

cdc.gov/flu/about/burd…

H1N1 flu virus, on the other hand, accounted for an estimated 1,153 deaths of ages 0-17 from Sep. 2009 through April 2010.

9/10

academic.oup.com/cid/article/52…

We see this in hospitalizations. The EIP surveillance network, which covers about 14 states and roughly 10% of the U.S. population designed to match demographics, estimates 33.5 cumulative hospitalizations for the flu in 2017-18 for ages 0-17.

10/11

gis.cdc.gov/GRASP/Fluview/…

But the same surveillance network shows 55.5 hospitalizations 0-17 per 100,000. Remember, this is in ~20 months. This is also "COVID-associated hospitalizations" because the CDC acknowledges it includes all confirmed positive tests...

11/12

covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tra…

If we go back to the CDC estimated disease burden, we find an estimated 43,142 hospitalizations for ages 0-17 in the 2017-18 flu season.

On July 1, 2017, the Census Bureau estimates a population of 73,632,336 or 58.6 hospitalizations per 100,000!

12/13

So the estimate of hospitalizations from flu in 2017 has a higher rate (58.6 per 100,000) than *with* COVID-19 in 20 months (55.5).

But wait, there's more!

13/14

A study from Stanford back in May showed that at one hospital, 39% of pediatric patients had no symptoms whatsoever. 30% had mild or moderate symptoms.

14/15

med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/…

This is backed up by a larger, more comprehensive study that just came out reported by The Atlantic that found in 50,000 hospitalized patients in VA hospitals, almost 48 percent have been asymptomatic or mild/moderate symptoms in 2021.

14/15

researchsquare.com/article/rs-898…

Bottom line: there is no evidence that COVID-19 is more dangerous to children than the flu. The data shows the opposite. Fauci did indeed tell a big fib.

End.