Not sure why you added the lower limit at 15. The two high risk age groups from influenza are 65+ and under 5. If I recall correctly, pediatric flu deaths are the only ones tracked by the CDC (for other age groups they just use statistical estimates).

There is data on comorbities with the flu from prior years. This article says half of deaths had no preexisting medical conditions.

https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/141/4/e201729...

And the deaths among healthy young people from both kinds of viruses is commonly blamed on the cytokine storm:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4711683/

I picked 15-34 because it corresponds with the data table I cited from the CDC, which lists confirmed deaths from each for the time period. It's already cited and linked, but here's it again: table 2, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm

Note that a few of the deaths are -both- COVID-19 and influenza.

You mind sharing the source on those numbers because the total deaths is somewhat meaningless without the number of infections which I imagine is much higher for the flu? Even those absolute numbers show total deaths being just over 25% higher for COVID-19 than the flu.

Table 2: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm

The statement you differed with is "The third option is, when you take into account that it's approximately as bad as the flu for folks under 40," You're ignoring data in order to make a wishy-washy statement that it must be much worse for people under 40 based on anecdotes you hear.

I don't agree flu infections were higher for those 2 months, either. Distancing has been spectacularly effective against influenza, since it has a lower Rt in the absence of controls. Under 1% of influenza surveillance tests are positive right now, which is a level usually only seen in the middle of summer.

Our best guess for overall infection fatality rate is about 0.3%, double or 3x influenza (because of the very high death rate in the elderly), but COVID-19 deaths overall have been 4x influenza in that time period, indicating that COVID-19 prevalence is higher.

First off, all those numbers are once again absolute deaths and not related to case numbers so my prior complaint still stands. If you look at the first chart, you will see that COVID-19 deaths didn't start becoming a problem until March. Distancing practices were not widespread until mid-March. Meanwhile flu deaths weren't dramatically cut until the most recent timeframe. So taking into consideration both the first chart and the second chart that breaks out the numbers by age range, there seems to be an implication that COVID-19 deaths are much higher for young people in recent weeks. Therefore the absolute numbers would look totally different if March 1st was the starting point. I really don't see anything here that demonstrates the flu is as dangerous as COVID-19 for young people.

We've said approximately as dangerous. It clearly is in a very similar ballpark. We don't have enough data right know to know if it's twice as dangerous for people under age 30, or half as dangerous.

(We do already know it's -way less dangerous- for people under age 18).

Ok, maybe this dispute is based on different definitions. I don't think 2X is "approximately", but I do agree that we don't have enough data right now to know the exact difference so I can't say for sure that COVID-19 is more than 2X as dangerous.

I also agree that COVID-19 does appear to be way less dangerous for the under 18 group. However practically none of the under 18 group is able to isolate themselves away from the 18 and over group so there is no real societal benefit to this distinction.

> I don't think 2X is "approximately", but I do agree that we don't have enough data right now to know the exact difference so I can't say for sure that COVID-19 is more than 2X as dangerous.

I think we have enough data to exclude more than 2x. The range of potential danger has influenza's risk right in the middle of it.

> I also agree that COVID-19 does appear to be way less dangerous for the under 18 group. However practically none of the under 18 group is able to isolate themselves away from the 18 and over group so there is no real societal benefit to this distinction.

There's a huge societal benefit to this distinction, because if children are at relatively low risk, and also do not seem to be index cases very often for how COVID-19 is spread to households, schools can reopen. This is different from most diseases, where schools are often a key mechanism of disease spread. e.g. see https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.26.20044826v...

That's pretty bad considering only perhaps 5% of the population has been penetrated with covid-19 vs 100% for the flu. Assuming a 70% eventual population infection rate, using your data we should expect to see around 2900 deaths in that age cohort. Annualized flu numbers would be around 500. So covid-19 by your data is 6x more fatal.

100% of the population was not "penetrated" with the flu between February 1 and now. Evidence implies a similar proportion of the population was "penetrated" with COVID-19 and the flu in that time. This implies a similar death rate for COVID-19 and influenza in those age groups, as the poster said.

Indeed, influenza has been greatly impacted by distancing. The surveillance numbers for influenza are lower than you'll ever see for this time of year.

I can't exclude it's twice as bad as the flu (or half as bad). But even those broadly agree with the poster's statement.