The study is being conducted in the United States in early May 2020. To date, approximately 65,000 people in the United States have died from COVID-19, a number similar to the estimated number of deaths from seasonal flu ( Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – CDC). However, some signs question this apparent equivalence of deaths related to COVID-19 and seasonal flu, including the shortage of respirators, or the need to transform certain hospital services into intensive care units to care for COVID-19 patients. . Such a phenomenon has never happened with seasonal flu. Despite this shortage never known before, some experts and even public bodies continue to compare mortality from seasonal flu and SARS-CoV-2, often with the aim of minimizing the effects of the current pandemic.
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You cannot compare recorded data with extrapolated data
In the United States, the CDC presents the morbidity and mortality linked to seasonal influenza not as raw figures but as estimates from data from surveillance networks: thus for the periods 2013 to 2014 and 2018 to 2019, then that the number of recorded seasonal flu deaths was between 3,448 and 15,620, the CDC estimated the same figure between 23,000 and 61,000. Thus, for influenza, and still in the United States, the estimates of deaths attributable to influenza are almost 6 times higher than the confirmed figures.
- Conversely, deaths from COVID-19 are currently counted and reported directly but not estimated.
- It is therefore not possible to compare a number of directly recorded deaths (COVID-19) with an estimated number of deaths (influenza).
COVID-19, 20 times more deadly than the flu? The exercise is then carried out over a week, during the week ending April 21, 2020 for COVID-19 – which corresponds to the peak of the epidemic for the United States vs a week of influenza epidemic peak during for the past 7 years. The authors estimate:
- 15,455 deaths from COVID- recorded in the United States during the week ending April 21, 2020 and 14,478 the previous week;
- however, deaths linked to influenza during the week of the epidemic peak have been in the last 7 years, between 351 and 1,626;
- thus the number of deaths due to COVID-19 is estimated by researchers between 10 and 44 times higher than the number of deaths linked to influenza (and 20 times on average);
- then, the CDC, with a little delay also publishes provisional figures of deaths due to COVID-19 and these data suggest a number of deaths due to COVID-19 provisionally declared 14.4 times the number of deaths from influenza in a week of peak disease.
- Finally, the comparison between the “approximately” 60,000 COVID-19 deaths recorded in the United States at the end of April 2020 which suggests a multiplier of “only” 1.0 to 2.6 times compared to influenza-related deaths estimated by the CDC over the past 7 years suggests that the CDC significantly overestimates the number of deaths related to influenza and / or that the number of confirmed and registered deaths linked to COVID-19 is itself largely underestimated.
COVID-19 deaths underestimated? This underestimation is likely due to the lack of tests or false negatives. Deaths from influenza are themselves most likely underreported. It is also possible that some deaths labeled COVID-19 are not linked to COVID-19. Finally, the excess mortality in this COVID-19 period is not significant.
The excess mortality probably includes excess deaths linked to the postponement of care during confinement.
COVID-19, a fatality rate 5 times higher than that of the flu? Comparisons of the case-fatality rates of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza are premature: the shortage of tests means that there is a considerable margin of error in the number of people infected. Across the study, the authors note, fatality rates associated with COVID-19 range from less than 1% to about 15%. Only serological studies representative of the general population will be able to specify the fatality rate of SARS-CoV-2. The Diamond Princess is one of the rare situations for which complete data is available, including the fatality rate calculated at the end of April of 1.8% (13 deaths out of 712 cases), reduced to 0.5% taking into account the age characteristics in the general population – compare with an average fatality rate for seasonal flu of 0.1%.
Without concluding definitively, these researchers alert public health authorities to the dangers of comparing data that is not comparable. Minimize the virulence of SARS-CoV-2 at a time of economic recovery by claiming that “it is” just another flu “is not possible”.
This new approach to data analysis “shows the real threat to public health from COVID-19”.
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