Comparing Covid to Influenza

From the start I’ve seen people ostracized for comparing Covid to Influenza. Now that there’s been some time to see exactly how it pans out I find the numbers coming out of states interesting. There’s been times on here I’ve felt my rear was to the flames for calling it like I saw it from first hand knowledge. Now the numbers are starting to show it.

That's worth shutting the country down and turning out the lights, huh? SMH

Sure was still plenty of positives here. Still not over-run. Even the elderly with it are walking out to go home.

There are so many holes in your comparison. I'll just do one. Corona has only been around 4 months in Texas. 8 more months and then we can at least make a time frame for comparison for Texas.

There are more, but what would be the point?

Well Dirt even if the numbers kept up what's already been done in the first six months Texas would be at 6,200 deaths. More testing, positives, and survivals is bringing the already lower mortality rate down. It's not going up. Your next hole?

WadeRyan if those statistics are the real deal than the governor should be turning 180 degrees on his decision. However I tried to look up the stats for myself and could not find them on the Texas Health Department website. Could you please post the link that you obtained that statistical chart from. Thanks

Corona has been around a lot longer than 4 months. If a tree falls in the forest, and no media reports it, did it really fall?

If the recovery and death rates add to 100%, does that mean there are no active cases in Texas?

Texas will do 3000 this next month if pattern holds. Hopefully it comes down after that. Pay attention, numbers are going up, not maintaining at the old level. 520 or 17% of the Texas death toll happened in the last 6 days.

Danvee, you can get most of the information right here.

https://txdshs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/ed483ecd702b4298ab01e8b9cafc8b83

No I'd say it would be a comparison between those that have died or recovered and have a definitive end. I don't see active cases mentioned although I posted a link if you'd like to look at the total that are still active.

Looks like regular flu got it to me Wade

Hey- should we have worn masks the last 2 seasons?
Looks like the flu might be a lot more deadly...

I haven't worn a mask outside of work yet or went to a business that required it. I do wear one during Influenza season while I'm working simply because I am right in the business end of it for 12 hours a day... so far my record is 14 positives I was exposed to in one shift. We've had Covid in our community for months and I have not stopped any daily routine. Antibody negative. As contagious as the media would like you to believe surely by not practicing social distancing, masking, and being exposed to known positives I'd likely have had it by now..

That’s the stats I’ve been seeing too. Thanks for posting. Wade a great source of information is the website flattenthefearcom. Great doctors with no agenda

Covid can have lasting disabilities says CDC. Brain, heart, and lungs may be permanently damaged.

The news media and promotion of a fake crisis is the difference between the two

Not sure but almost every illness does if not treated properly or if allowed to progress.

So can over eating, drinking, smoking, drugs, and the list goes on.

Most of those are caused by pro-longed ventilation which is being done to prevent the spread of the virus by aerosol. A lot of the typical respiratory treatments were not done by doctors in the early stages of this due to the unknown and the mass fear portrayed by the media of the virus. In my opinion of course. Also my opinion if we'd just treated this thing with Bipap and breathing treatments rather than intubating people at 92% oxygen (we don't even normally place oxygen on someone until 90%) a lot of the deaths could have been avoided. I'm going to re-write that for you Charles we typically do not place even a liter of oxygen on someone (usually in their nose) until they were below 90% oxygen and then they usually recover and improve with oxygenation. There were Covid protocols that were placing tubes down people's throats at 92% oxygen.....why?

When this thing kicked off I listened to a critical care pulmonologist as he explained the data coming in from other countries was showing Covid was killing people due to prolonged ventilation and complications of this. Research since then has shown that there's a very steep increase in your chance of death if you ended up intubated with Covid.

Your lungs, heart, and brain are all going to suffer after 28-30 days on a vent no matter how good of a job your healthcare team has done.

A better comparison for covid is pertussis.

This appears to prove the initial concern. That it is very contagious and spreads rapidly which could overwhelm medical infrastructure.

32k flu annually, 250k covid in 4 months.

The narrative has changed in the last few months from flattening the curve to waiting for a vaccine.

Pike River:

"This appears to prove the initial concern. That it is very contagious and spreads rapidly which could overwhelm medical infrastructure.

32k flu annually, 250k covid in 4 months.

The narrative has changed in the last few months from flattening the curve to waiting for a vaccine."

Pike, I hate to always be the bearer of bad news but if you're waiting for a vaccine or a cure...you'll be waiting a long time. How many years have we had an Influenza vaccine and they are still 60-70% at best. We have no cure for HIV how many years has it been around? The fact of the matter is people are going to die unfortunately but closing everything is not a realistic solution.

Also when you're saying 250k of Covid in four months you must look at the number tested....we've tested over 2.5 million people in Texas to get that number (1 in every 10 tested was positive). As opposed to just under 200k tests for 31k positives on Influenza (1 in every 6 tested was positive). So using your own logic it appears Influenza is much more contagious. 10% of those tested for Covid came back positive and 17% tested for Influenza came back positive. I can spin the numbers any way you'd like.

I had an ER doctor look at me today and say what are we pre-testing all of these surgical people for? Do we test everyone before surgery for Influenza? We're testing people that have zero symptoms, zero complications, and no outward signs of Covid. We're testing people for Covid because they work in a building with someone that has Covid. The world has lost it's mind.

From a personal perspective in the last week I've seen a Covid-19 positive mom give birth to a child breast feed that child (mental picture that's not far from her face) for two days and the baby's Covid was negative at discharge. I've seen a 72 year old that was Covid positive have nothing more than throwing up two times for symptoms and was able to walk out to her car to go home. I had a pre-screening 7 year old child prior to a procedure come back positive and she had no outward symptoms, nor anyone in her immediate family. It's not as deadly or as contagious as they'd like you to believe. The vast majority of people with Covid-19 have little to no symptoms or complications. It's been shown time and time again. There's no overwhelming of medical infrastructure but quite the opposite.

I never ever tested positive for the flu. Why would I bother? Of course 1 in every 6 tested positive they probably had flu symptoms and got tested. This is not a measure of the infection rate for the general public. There is a lot more random testing for corona.

Very true and also as I pointed out why there's such a large number of Covid cases compared to Influenza cases.....I didn't say his logic was correct. I said by his logic influenza would be more contagious.

Random extensive testing is why you are seeing such a large number of Covid-19 positives. Not because it's some kind of a super bug.

I just saw the swat team blast their way in, and the federales dragging Leftlane out of his underground bunker!!!!!!
OMG! OMG!

LL was yelling "I don't want to be tested.... you're hurting my arm. I refuse because I'm an American! I know my rights!"
The big guy leading the swat'ers shoved LL into the dust and said, "You ain't got anymore rights Bubba. Now open up your nostrils cause we're a gonna test youuuuuuuu."

Donna and I quick - ducked back down behind a sago palm - when they put that big ol' swab up his nose!
We couldn't watch. The scene was too horrific. Like a coyote jerking out when you first pull up!

Hope he's ok. They drug him a long way.

Mark...

Didnt say I was waiting for a vaccine...
I said the narrative framed by the media has changed.

The narrative has changed because people have realized there is no curve to flatten. Thanks for the retraction.

This appears to prove the initial concern. That it is very contagious and spreads rapidly which could overwhelm medical infrastructure. Seemed to go poof. There's no proof this is true. If anything Covid has been very underwhelming. I've ran a 1800 number off and on for the last three months.

Caller I just got not long ago,
"Hey man, someone at my work had Covid I have no symptoms but I am feeling fatigued today my work thought I should call you."

"Okay, so no symptoms other than you're tired, and someone in your work has had Covid? I'll schedule you for drive thru testing you're looking at 4-6 days for results. Thanks."

"Hey wait man, so does that mean I should not go to work?"

"I suppose if you think you have Covid you should probably stay home don't you think?"

"Well man, I just need to be able to tell my employer I can't come to work......think this will work?"

"Thanks. Goodbye."

Because of the initial reaction the curve did flatten.....it worked. America did well. Thr prez didnt do a bad job. Eventually this thing became politicized by both sides unfortunately and now we have extremes. If we didnt do something to flatten the curve our infrastructure couldve easily been overwhelmed. Instead of 250k in TX over the course of 4 months it could've been 4 weeks. Because we flatten the curve people are not dying for lack of access but because of pre-existing conditions. The reason why the US has so many deaths I feel is because so many of us are already obese, high blood pressure and blood sugar issues.

Big difference between Covid and flu is after recovery from Covid, people many times have serious health and lung problems. My sister-in-law is one of them.

There's probably well over 250k in Tx over the course of four months the problem is they don't even know they have it. As more people are getting tested millions are going to come back positive with a large majority not even knowing they ever had it. Take out a few outbreaks in predominantly politicized states and really this great illness has been unremarkable. Obesity, high blood pressure, and high blood sugar will kill you with or without Covid. That's a fact.

Ratbrain we've already discussed this go back a page

Where the link that this data came from?

1st page

All I know is I do not want to get the Covid!

Especially the Brain .

Along Pike River's theme. There is no way we can compare the infection rate from a flu year in which nobody's behavior was changed to a covid half a year where 2 and a half months of government modified behavior and 4 months of free will behavior change occurred.

The infection rate here is 1 to 2 percent. It is because the State government put the hammer to it,

Delayed the infection at a terrible economic cost.

Doesn't the time frame have a big significance. I mean I have never saw or heard of refrigerated trucks used for the flu (I doubt they had them in the swine flu day).

Numbers scare people, probably if the public concentrated on the numbers of preventable medical errors each year, people would never go near a hospital. But those numbers aren't flashed on tv every night.

They might have held me down and got me tested but I tried to make Texas proud.

I bit 2 in the leg, 1 in the hand, and I got a piece of that big guys ear on the way down.

Tyson would be proud of ya.

Most viruses can cross the blood brain barrier. So it's no surprise that it can affect the brain. The Epstein Bar Virus(EBV) can affect the brain too. The Herpes Zoster Virus(HZ) affects the heart and can cause heart problems too. If just depends on the weak link in your body as to where the virus decides to settle. Not trying to make light of the Corona. It's definitely here and can cause problems just like a lot of other viruses.

So wade I looked at Texas data, a bit from your link. The measured positive rate is now near 17% and trending upward. Before the reopening the rate was only about 7%

The Covid hospitalization numbers went from 2,000 patients on June 1 to about 10,000 patients on July 9 and trending upward.

I'm a betting man, and I'd bet the death toll for corona will catch up to your above average Texas flu season numbers.



Texas Data dashboard

I cant help but wonder is anyone has taken into account the illegals coming across the southern border into Texas.

You know- the ones who walked all the way up from El Salvador and Guatemala with nothing (except brand new i-phones, skinny jeans w/ bling on the pockets, designer hair cuts, and still managed to arrive 100 pounds over weight)?

X2.

You can take that 2 different ways... No pun intended

The flu season ends in April. Apparently not in Texas this year. Wade add another 239 ( the last two days) to your Texas total. Appears the game wasn't over at halftime.


I forgot: add 239 new inflated numbers to add to the old inflated numbers.

Yall can take this for what it is worth- I will pass along the latest from this week.

I know of a married couple and one of their close friends who got the covid and bounced back extremely quickly. All parents are 50 ish and their are 4 kids between the two households. I was told that the 12 yr old girl had the worst symptoms but that she turned it around in just over 3 days. Everyone else was bad for 2 days and improving rabidly on the 3rd. It shouldn't matter, but all are middle to upper middle class working families (successful / hard working) out in the burbs of San Antonio TX.

I have recently started seeing a social worker of some kind- I do not know her exact title but she works with low income and disabled people usually in public housing in San Antonio. I found it interesting that she said the people she works with are usually handled over the phone and with skype type meetings. She said she has only had a limited # of cases but that they take weeks and weeks to report any improvement.

"What methods are used to estimate the number of influenza-associated deaths in the U.S.?

The methods to estimate the annual number of influenza-associated deaths have been described in detail elsewhere (1-2). The model uses a ratio of deaths-to-hospitalizations in order to estimate the total influenza-associated deaths from the estimated number of influenza-associated hospitalizations.

We first look at how many in-hospital deaths were observed in FluSurv-NET. The in-hospital deaths are adjusted for under-detection of influenza using methods similar to those described above for hospitalizations using data on the frequency and sensitivity of influenza testing. Second, because not all deaths related to influenza occur in the hospital, we use death certificate data to estimate how likely deaths are to occur outside the hospital. We look at death certificates that have pneumonia or influenza causes (P&I), other respiratory and circulatory causes (R&C), or other non-respiratory, non-circulatory causes of death, because deaths related to influenza may not have influenza listed as a cause of death. We use information on the causes of death from FluSurv-NET to determine the mixture of P&I, R&C, and other coded deaths to include in our investigation of death certificate data. Finally, once we estimate the proportion of influenza-associated deaths that occurred outside of the hospital, we can estimate the deaths-to-hospitalization ratio.

Data needed to estimate influenza-associated deaths may lag for up to two years after the season ends. When this is not yet available for the season being estimated, we adjust based on values observed in prior seasons (e.g., the 2010-2011 season through the 2016-2017 season) and update the estimates when more current data become available.
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."

CDC

Dirt, sorry I’ve been busy saving lives. It’s my birthday so I’m going to go eat some ribs in the meantime I’ve been working on all day. If the shutdown of Texas was saving so many lives. Why haven’t the people of South Dakota or here in Nebraska been dropping like flies?

I’m not sure what you’re trying to show with your last post? It pretty much points out Influenza is underreported? I thought we’d already established that.

I'm pointing out that the Flu death numbers appear to be an "estimate influenza-associated deaths " Much like the corona estimated associated deaths. Which are figured well after the year the numbers come in.

Basically, both numbers are going to be a WAG. They are not hard numbers.

They are also talking here in Ohio about the severe damage it can and is causing to the kidneys... I understand from what I have heard on TV that this kidney problem is popping up in the younger people vs. the older folks.

One southern county here in Ohio, was getting along fine until they opened everything up at the end of June. Then the cases took off. All of the facts they use is based on per capita. This one county (Athens), the tracers found that many of the new positives came from people that had frequented one or more of three bars. The bars were not enforcing distancing requirements and not sure about other regulations, but these bars have been shut down.

Garry-

I think you guys saying it can cause permanent damage live in a fantasy land. Literally any virus you catch can cause lasting damage. Human metapneumovirus is a virus found in the common upper respiratory cold. When your nose runs a little bit in the winter. Under the right circumstances I’ve seen it kill people. That’s about as permanent of damage as you can have don’t you think?

I’ve never said I don’t think Covid won’t kill people. I’ve never said it can’t hurt you. I’ve said it’s no more potent than any other virus we deal with daily. Unless you keep watching your television. Did you stay in your house the last time your nose ran in the winter for 14 days? Did you wear a mask for the better good of everyone when you had a viral cold last winter? What changed?

Also before I hear Covid-19 is a novel virus so it’s so much more dangerous. There’s seven subtypes of human coronavirus that date back as far as 1965. They were all “novel” viruses at some point. Why didn’t we shut down the country each time a new subtype was discovered since then?

Don't know anyone got it or heard anyone has it, yet skyrocket new cases on news, up an up in Iowa. If true, when it gonna slow down or is it ? What go happen ? If it true, I. A target 60 an some pre existing conditions. Not lot but enough to possibly make it much worse if get it, if not already have or had it, if I felt like pitch $30, I go lab an take blood test to see if had it, can u get it twice ? Todsy another bad day for allergy sufferers, high heat index an split headache again, Monday back work, at job pay peanuts. Should been looking elsewhere, have been last 2 days an thinking apply az pt delivery driver for paperwork, big ui checks make job go back to look like joke. 2 1/2 yrs no raise, not good work close someone factory an hot, definately could be covid go in bldg, if u got wear hot mask,i won't last a few days, can't breathe

Because somebody back then was smart enough to do a cost benefit analysis. They figured the cost of a shutdown would be worse than losing a few lives (few: small percentage of U.S. population). Apparently the value of a life has gone up considerably.

Add another 174 to you ongoing Texas covid mortality total for the new one day tally.

What’s the percentage of lives lost to Covid-19 in the United States Dirt? Would you consider it few (few:small percentage of the United States)?

Yes

I'm going to win my bet. Especially since Texas is cheating for me. However, that is how they score the flu associated deaths.



"July 27: DSHS is now reporting COVID-19 fatality data based on death certificates. A fatality is counted as a COVID-19 fatality when the medical certifier attests on the death certificate that COVID-19 is A cause of death.



Death certificate data has identified 5,713 fatalities among Texas residents, including 44 newly reported Monday. That compares with 5,038 deaths reported Sunday under the previous method."

Maybe I'm wrong, but during H1N1 I don't remember being forced to wear a mask.