(12-17-2020, 09:41 AM)Brentbaggie Wrote: I think it's reasonable to ask the question. And no, I don't believe it's just like the flu. It would be interesting to see what deaths are ascribed to flu and whether it has been appearing on death certificates since the flu season began.
Flu figures will be included in the total death figures whatever they are, if they are there yet (flu tends to be worse in Jan / Feb), all I am showing you are the deaths that are occurring more than normal with excess deaths. Flu would be considered as normal as it occurs every year, excess deaths highlight any difference in a year, we have 1 very big difference this year.
Normally (using the 5YA) there would be 10,695 deaths in week 49 and there were 12,303 in 2020. Lets look at the worst case scenario; if I look at the last 10 years figures for that week the highest number of deaths are 11,223 in 2016, so the figure of 12,303 is just over 1k more than the worst year in the last 10 years. If we want to take every worst week from the last 10 years and use it as 1 year to date and then compare that with 2020 you will find that there are nearly 35k more deaths this year. Also that includes the 1st 12 weeks of the year which didn't show any covid results, if you take them out we are showing 53k more deaths in that 37 week period.
Also you have to take into account that Flu, like covid is transmitted through contact and proximity, and we have reduced that this year so in theory that will also reduce the number of flu deaths.
So it is a regular line from people who want to play down covid by saying it's the same as flu, or that we could be having a bad flu season. Everything points to that not being the case.
(12-17-2020, 09:02 AM)Protheroe Wrote: My conclusion is that it's Winter. Do you have any separate figures for flu hospitalisations / flu deaths B1? Genuinely interested.
Sorry Proth , I answered on excess deaths. No i don't sorry but each of the hospitalisations are for those with confirmed covid patients. Now there has been some arguments that the tests are throwing out false positives which means we are highlighting flu hospitalisations as covid hospitalisations, but there are equally as many people arguing that they are reliable.
Also as mentioned flu is transmitted via contact and proximity and we've reduced that greatly this year. Logic then dictates that Flu will be down based on that alone.
Like I say, make your own mind up.