• Chriskmee@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I know I’ve read reports about the latest variants being much less deadly. I did see one study recently which for patients presenting to hospital covid was a few percentage points more likely to result in death compared to hospitalized flu patients. There were a lot more covid patients though.

    Found it:

    death rates among people hospitalized for COVID-19 were 17% to 21% in 2020 vs 6% in this study, while death rates for those hospitalized for influenza were 3.8% in 2020 vs 3.7% in this study

    https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2803749

    So there is some data backing up the feelings I’ve gotten from everything I’ve been hearing and seeing.

      • Chriskmee@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I mean, that’s one way to look at it. I looked at it as only a couple percent higher death rate than the flu. Either way, a little less than 2x is way better than like 5x worse.

        • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Obviously it’s better than before, but it’s also worth keeping in mind these deaths are in addition to the flu.

          Also, there are good and bad flu seasons. I see no reason for COVID to not be the same.

          • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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            1 year ago

            Even if we pedantically accept that ‘almost double’ is really ‘just a few percent higher’ while we’re looking at a single digit likelihood, ‘just a few percent more’ than for the flu is a lot more people in overall numbers with something that spreads far quicker than the flu. We could get the death rate of Covid down to ½ the rate for the flu but if infections are more than double (this is just an example, I don’t know the actual stats on this one), it still means Covid would be more deadly. Unless I’m missing something obvious.

            • holland@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              COVID is basically a year round disease where flu is seasonal. So yeah it’s gonna produce about an order of magnitude more death with just a few percent higher death rate.

              • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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                1 year ago

                That’s how I understood it, too. Turns out it’s a difficult thing to comprehend, though.

    • glingorfel [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      I’m not sure how severe an effect this would have on the numbers, but the death rate would non-negligibly go down after millions of the most vulnerable people died in the first wave. As well, the newer variants get more contagious and bypass immune responses more easily, and we’re taking way fewer precautions as a society. so 6% is a lower percent but still an incredibly high number

      • Chriskmee@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I saw it as an evolutionary benefit to be less deadly. The way I’m seeing this, the virus’s purpose in life is to spread, so a higher infection and contagious rate with less death rate is ideal from an evolution standpoint.

        • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          Ideal for it, not ideal for anyone who enjoys the full function of their mind and circulatory system.

          The mind thing isn’t a dig at you btw, it’s a reference to the brain fog

    • Mbourgon everywhere@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      There’s one crucial thing you overlooked in this: in 2020, most people hadn’t been infected, and hadn’t gotten the vaccine (because there was no vaccine until December,and even then it was in extremely short supply). Now, most people have some sort of immunity, be it from vaccine or from a prior infection. That definitely skews the hospitalization numbers downward. You can’t compare then and now, unfortunately, since there’s no real community that hasn’t been vaccinated and hasn’t caught it - and so you can’t compare their numbers.

      • Chriskmee@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        That’s fair, but I think you can still compare it to the flu, which is not that far off from covid percentage wise. At this point both the flu and covid should be at an equal level of people having vaccines and natural antibodies, right? Even if you go with covid being about twice as deadly as the flu, twice as deadly as almost nothing is still almost nothing.