Probably the same number of young and healthy people that die of COVID. For instance COVIDs fatality rate is lower than that of the flu for all demographics of people under the age of 35 per CDC data. It's about the same for 35-44 and really only diverges over 45. Worldwide the fatality rate under 20 rounds to zero. To date, pneumonia far outstrips COVID. [1]
This is completely inaccurate, and nowhere in the linked document is there supporting evidence to your claim that the flu has a higher fatality rate for under 35, nor the same for 35-44.
And this report relies on figures that diverge dramatically from the COVID death tolls. It lists the current total report as around 15k, when we're close to 3x.
> This is completely inaccurate, and nowhere in the linked document is there supporting evidence to your claim that the flu has a higher fatality rate for under 35, nor the same for 35-44.
Here's some more data. What I'm saying (that it's approximately the same as the flu for the young, with some early evidence pointing to it being better) isn't particularly controversial and well supported by evidence [1] (also older, April 14th). CDC as of late March "... no ICU admissions or deaths were reported among persons aged ≤19 years. Similar to reports from other countries, this finding suggests that the risk for serious disease and death from COVID-19 is higher in older age groups." [2] In Italy nobody under 30 died, and only 5 people between 30 and 39, as of April 19th -- yes in spite of a CFR of what, 13.22%? [3, 4]
More data as of April 20th from Oxford [4]. Scroll through all the data the world has to offer, I'm not wrong on this. I repeat, the facts you're arguing with me over, without citing data to support your case are not controversial. Surprising maybe, but not controvercial.
Especially when you consider (an albeit bad flu): the overall case fatality rate as of 16 July 2009 (10 weeks after the first international alert) with pandemic H1N1 influenza varied from 0.1% to 5.1% depending on the country. [4] The flu can absolutely be very bad is the take away there. And yeah this is worse than the flu, by around 3X on both ends of that range. Not bad, not great.
> It lists the current total report as around 15k, when we're close to 3x.
They actually address that critique, that it takes a few weeks for case data to be finalized and reported upwards, so the CDC data can be up to a few weeks behind. It's not divergent, it's delayed. This is a live list updated and maintained by the CDC. Make of that what you will.
> What I'm saying (that it's approximately the same as the flu for the young, with some early evidence pointing to it being better) isn't particularly controversial and well supported by evidence
There are 400 covid-19 deaths reported so far in the 18-44 age group in NYC. There are 3.5 mn people in that age group in NYC. That's over 11 per 100'000.
The mortality per 100'000 for the 18-49 group in the US estimated by the CDC was in the last nine flu seasons: 1.8, 2, 1, 1.2, 0.7, 2.5, 1.5, 0.5, 3.9.
It's a stretch to say they are approximately the same and definitely 11 is not better than 0.5-3.9.
I would call 4 vs 11 "approximately the same" for all intents and purposes when the denominator is so huge especially when COVID deaths are much more generously assigned than flu deaths, per my sources, especially [4].
Not to mention, flu deaths are attenuated by flu shots, and pre-existing immunity. It's totally plausible that there are many more COVID cases than flu cases in that age group -- and of course those flu deaths will happen year after year while COVID is a very stable virus, and if you get it once, you probably won't get it again.
Certainly not enough data to conclude it's way out of line with the flu for this age group, in this season let alone if you factor in a few seasons end on end.
Lastly, with H1N1, the numbers are quite different, too.
The COVID-19 infection fatality rate in the 18-45 group is at least 0.11% in NYC. And that's assuming that everyone single person has been infected, that no-one else is going to die from now on and that the estimates are not going to be revised upwards because of under-reporting.
The infection fatality rate for seasonal flu [edit: in the slightly older 18-49 group] is around 0.2% considering symptomatic cases, and probably there are as many asymptomatic cases which give 0.1%.
So yes, it's not impossible for the infection fatality rate to be similar. With some strong assumptions including that it's five times as contagious. So yes, it's not impossible for the acumulated lethality over five years to be similar. And if you extend the period the common flu will be much more dangerous, specially as this young people became older.
My data was older, and that difference is utterly irrelevant with a denominator so large, and there are many potential explanations. Especially since Italy, per my sources [4] in the parent post, assigns anyone who died while in possession of COVID as a COVID death. In fact they later announced up to 88% of their COVID deaths likely weren't actually COVID deaths but deaths of someone who happened to have COVID. So if we lop off 88%, well, it's hardly out of line.
88% of CFR potentially not being COVID was from [1] referencing [2]. Specifically:
"The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus.
"On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity – many had two or three," he says.
"Other experts have also expressed scepticism about the available data."
"Report from the Italian National Institute of Health: analysed 355 fatalities and found only three patients (0.8%) had no prior medical conditions. See Table 1 in the paper; (99% who died had one pre-existing health condition): 49% had three or more health conditions; 26% had two other ‘pathologies’, and 25% had one." [2]
(For what it's worth in my reply I called it out as "[4] from the parent post" which is [1] here -- sorry for the confusion -- all I meant was that the Italian data skews very high, both because it's the oldest region [Lombardy] in the oldest country in Europe [Italy] -- and because they were very generous in how they ascribed cause of death).
That's from one month ago and it doesn't mean that those people would be dead equally if they had not been infected.
Actually the official number is grossly under-reporting COVID-19 deaths:
"We estimate that the number of COVID-19 deaths in Italy is 52,000 ± 2000 as of April 18 2020, more than a factor of 2 higher than the official number."
In the weeks from March 1 to April 4 there were 19824 people death in a subset of municipalities in Lombardia where data is already available, while in the last five years the number of deaths in the comparable period was in the 6767 - 7248 range. This subset normally accounts for 73% of the deaths in the region so we can estimate that there were 17000 excess deaths (27200 vs 9200-9900).
Less than 9000 COVID-19 deaths were reported in Lombardia by that time. If you think they are too generous classifying deaths as being caused by the infection, what would you say that caused the death of more than twice the usual number of people during the period?
