Seasonal Flu Statistics Irrelevant

Mr Chapotone’s recent letter to the Daily Star is a prime example of the confusion individuals still have regarding the implementation of the country shut down in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.  It’s the same confusion our President initially had in the early stages of the onset.

 

It is irrelevant to ponder the decision for the country shutdown by quoting the number of cases, hospitalizations, deaths, and the number of states involved in a typical flu season.

The shutdown was implemented due to the RATE of hospitalizations over a short period of time.  In a typical flu season hospitalizations are pretty much spread out over a six month period from October to March with a peak usually occurring in February.

COVID-19 on the other hand has had more U.S. hospitalizations during one month than the typical flu season has during its peak month.   Additionally more than 25% of those hospitalized have ended up in the ICU.

To once again bring people up to speed, it was never about the total number of cases of COVID-19, but instead about the rate and severity of the hospitalizations due to its highly contagious characteristics.

Simply put, our entire healthcare system became overloaded from the high rate of infection over a very short period of time, and hospitalization admissions needed to be slowed, thus the “self-distancing” and “shut down”  paradigms.

Sadly, many individuals, like Mr. Chapotone, keep throwing around 6 month seasonal flu statistics in an attempt to show that the COVID-19 is not as serious by comparison, and hinting that perhaps the shutdown measures were unnecessary.  Fortunately, for all, the President came to his senses and realized the rate of hospitalizations needed to be slowed.

In closing, if these individuals who roll out seasonal flu statistics are patient, I predict they will be proven wrong when the same 6 month seasonal flu time frame statics are calculated for COVID-19.   So far during COVID-19’s three month run in the U.S. there are now over 50,000 deaths compared to 61,200 deaths for the entire 6 month 2018-2019 U.S. flu season.   I suspect COVID-19 will surpass every recent seasonal flu statistic, for there is no vaccine available like there is for seasonal flu.