(05-07-2020 02:34 PM)TripleA Wrote: Factcheck.org (often needing to be fact checked itself) claims that it's fake news, that there are 2 different numbers. One is the number of people who died with death certificates, the other is the total reported by health agencies, inclusive of death certificates, but including many more. The difference was 37,000 vs. 64,000.
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/05/cdc-ha...eath-toll/
Not that you're saying this, but someone might imply it from the way you wrote it....
Nobody dies without a death cert in this country. They are not always prepared/finalized quickly.
In an effort to be timely, Health agencies don't always wait for death certs for their reporting
please see below
(05-08-2020 05:55 AM)Redwingtom Wrote: Now do the ACTUAL deaths per year from the basic types of flu. It's around 3k to 15k per year, nowhere near the usually reported estimate of 40k.
Educate yourself, Tom.... For anything other than COVID-19, death certificates require a
conclusive finding of 'flu' to have that on the death certificate... since lots of people, especially seniors with comorbidities, die without an autopsy (or often without a hospitalization, at home or in a center) they may not have that confirmation.. Flu tests are not that conclusive and since you'll treat someone with suspected flu as if they have it, getting a flu test is not a big deal when someone with chronic severe COPD is dying.
The CDC does, and has for a very long time... 'estimated' the number of flu associated deaths per year, and this is the primary number that they have always reported.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html
2010-2011 37k
2011-2012 12k
2012-2013 43k
2013-2014 38k
2014-2015 51k
2015-2016 23k
2016-2017 38k
2017-2018 prelim estimate 61k
2018-2019 prelim estimate 34k
You might also look at the 95% confidence range.... for 2017-2028, the range was 46k-95k. If someone wanted to fudge the numbers and play games (like you're doing, though I don't think it intentional) they'd be telling you (correctly) that according to the CDC the 2017-2018 number COULD have been 95k.
For Covid, not all states health departments report what is on the death certificate as the cause of death. They instead have a more simple 'report' made to the state... so some report two numbers... one with only confirmed cases to the state, and one reported to the CDC that follows the CDC COD death certificate requirement to include 'probable' and 'presumed'...
which is not allowed for flu or any other unconfirmed disease. States who report the 'other' number are not doing 'wrong', because for every other disease, there wouldn't be a difference.
The CDC is trying to provide people like you a proper frame of reference for comparison... and because these flu numbers aren't 'newly' reported... nobody can claim that they only started doing this because of covid.
So....
You can't add up the state numbers and get the CDC numbers because it's not always apples:apples.
You also can't look at today's number and assume that it won't change... because states and docs don't all report death certs immediately.... most do within a few days, almost all within a few weeks.... and SOME cases (not many but a few) can take a long time to resolve if there is a legal question/dispute.... hence why 2017-2018 is still preliminary
NOBODY in this country dies without a death certificate (eventually)
and the proper number for comparison to the reported COVID numbers IS the 'estimated' Flu deaths.
/
CDC Finally gives us the REAL virus death numbers.
