At 01:49 03/03/2020, Thomas Cox wrote:
>For me, a relative lethality multiplier of anywhere between 10 and
>60 is more than sufficient for concern
Indeed - that's a no-brainer. Indeed, if that 'multiplier' were
anything appreciably greater than unity, then there would be cause
for concern - but we really don't yet 'know'.
Don't forget that I am not knocking what is being done in relation to
Covid19 (since erring on the side of caution seems the only sensible
course in this early "we don't know" situation) but, rather,
wondering why we do not feel the need to do anything similar in
relation to influenza. We don't see schools. medical facilities or
whatever being closed (and 'deep cleaned') because someone with 'flu
has entered them. We don't see sporting and entertainment events
being cancelled to reduce the risk of transmission of 'flu, even
during the peak times of 'flu outbreaks. We don't see people
restricting their travel, domestically or internationally to reduce
the risk of transmission of 'flu duing the 'flu season etc. etc.
>Here in the US, where we take the flu pretty seriously, there have
>been 32,,000,000 cases thus far this year (about 10% of the
>population), 310,000 hospitalizations, and 18,000 deaths - for a
>death rate of 0.0005625 (18000/32000000) per case.
There are clearly some big trans-Atlantic differences, either in the
true figures or incorrect estimates thereof. The figures I recently
posted indicates an average estimate of influenza-related deaths in
England of 21,156 deaths/year over the four seasons 2014/5 -
2017/8. During those same four seasons, the average of the CDC's
corresponding estimates for the US was (at 43,250 deaths/year) almost
exactly double the figure for England - but the US population is
around 6 times that of England. The explanation must be a
combination of some/all of:
1...The 'lethality' of influenza is much greater in England (seems unlikely)
2...The 'lethality' is similar in the two countries, but Influenza
infection is much more common in England (again, seems unlikely).
3...The 'lethality' is similar in the two countries, but the number
of cases of influenza in US is greatly over-estimated and/or the
number in England greatly underestimated.
It's probably very appropriate that we are discussing this in a
Statistics forum, since everything is surrounded by considerable
uncertainty - but, unfortunately, particularly in the case of
Covid19, not an uncertainty that we can yet really model satisfactorily.
Even the number of influenza-related deaths is pretty
'uncertain'. In the one of the above seasons (2017/8) with the
highest CDC estimate of deaths, the estimate of 61,000 deaths had a
95% CI of 46,000 - 95,000 (2017/8), As for the number of cases, I
don't know the situation in the US but many of the figures in the UK
appear to relate to 'influenza-like-illnesses', diagnosed
symptomatically, but without laboratory confirmation.
Kind Regards,
John
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