> In the early days, we believed that Covid was 10-20 times deadlier than the flu, and that's what was used to justify the draconian measures.

I'm looking at this [1] data, Table 4, specifically the row for April.

Deaths in April

Pneumonia+Influenza, 5yr avg: 2,354.8

Pneumonia+Influenza, 2020: 1,933

COVID: 29,128

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=%2fpeoplepopulationandcommun...

April was peak, pre-lockdown, full-blown pandemic conditions. That's a 12x difference. Bad. Shit.

The influenza season in the UK is typically October-May with the peak period December-March. So the 2020 number for influenza is a bit flawed given that it's missing 25% of the typical peak period and 3/8 of the whole influenza season.

You'd have to compare infection rates for the season peak to matter. Infection rates for influenza probably being an order of magnitude worse than Coronavirus in April, probably. But whatever, the mortality rate data is there in the table, too, if you care to look. Influenza death rate in January 5yr average was 4218, which is about 1.8x worse than April. That absolutely does not make up the 12x difference here.

The numbers for Jan-Aug don't include December for any previous year, so there's no flaw there.

The flaw is in comparing COVID-19's "season" with influenza's season while leaving out a full quarter of a typical influenza season.

To be clear: the flaw doesn't flip my interpretation of the results or anything, but it's still a glaring flaw that doesn't seem to be addressed in the article.

Okay, now open Table 5 on that same spreadsheet. And take a look at the numbers for the year 2000.

# of deaths Jan-Aug (due to either flu, pneumonia or Covid)

2000: 40,436 2020: 14,013 + 48,168

Yes, this is significant and certainly Covid seems to be able to spread across a vulnerable population much more quickly than the flu but it doesn't seem to be orders of magnitude deadlier on balance. I get why people thought it was 10-20x in the beginning but it seems as we've learned more it is not the plague we thought it was.

Also note the numbers for August have already flipped so that 4x more people are dying of flu and pneumonia now than of Covid.

When you average over a long timespan that includes unprecedented global steps to limit this thing. Also, essentially nobody was infected with COVID in January, so you are just flat out being disingenuous. You could as well go back to November if you really want to make the numbers look good for your argument.

> I get why people thought it was 10-20x in the beginning

It was 10x in the beginning. It averaged 12x for an entire month. It was 15x for numerous days in a row, and this is despite it infecting far fewer people than the flu. It was why we had a massive global lockdown, mask mandates, social distancing, the whole shitshow, in case you missed that.

At this point I am inclined to disengage because you, specifically, have been all over every single COVID thread with the same misinformation and distortions. Frankly, it's tiring. It doesn't matter what the numbers are anymore. Never did. "Just a flu". smh.

You can perform the same exact calculations over the numbers in Sweden, where there were no mask mandates and no shut downs and no school cancellations and they had the exact same epidemic curve as the UK. In fact they did better than the UK on a per capita basis. Like the UK, Sweden had huge outbreaks in vulnerable populations which occurred in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Once they got those outbreaks under control, their death rates plummeted. So two countries with vastly different approaches had the same outcome. That underscores the fact that Covid is more infectious than the flu and can spread more rapidly.

The virus is getting less deadly. You can have many hypotheses for why that is: better treatments, younger patients, viral mutations, or just better testing which is giving us a clearer picture of the actual threat.

But you can't deny that YTD, the data does not show a disease that is anywhere close to 10-12x the flu. The fact that the flu has already surpassed Covid in monthly deaths (despite being less infectious) by the month of August at a rate of 4x Covid should tell you something, and we're not even in peak flu season yet.

Like others have mentioned, if this disease is capable of spreading much more rapidly than the flu, then it may knock out many of the same people who would have been vulnerable to the flu in a subsequent year. It may be that better treatments cause the death rate to continue to plummet. Is it fair to compare a disease we have been fighting for thousands of years to a novel virus we had no idea about 8 months ago? Probably not. As best practices and treatments get established it may very well turn out that Covid remains less deadly than the flu in perpetuity.

> Covid does not seem to have the same seasonality that the flu has,

[citation needed]

Considering that covid-19 is a pandemic, and has not yet reached the point where its endemic, we can't actually know that.

> The number of deaths from flu, pneumonia, and Covid are about 50% higher than the year 2000 (Jan-Aug)

Correct, welcome to averages.

In april the total mortality was between 50 and 125% higher than normal (per week, looking at total deaths, not counting where covid was mentioned.) That peak was neatly 3-4 weeks after lockdown was imposed. So to answer your question "justify the draconian measures" do you want to re-run that experiment? because I don't like the look of those odds. Looking at the USA, where they've tried it, it doesn't look too hot either.

see raw data here https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...

> Do those numbers justify draconian shutdowns and bankrupting half of humanity?

These are the numbers with "draconian" counter measures. We can only imagine the numbers without them. And that is what should be compared with the numbers from flu and pneumonia. Luckily, we don't have these numbers.