Why COVID is just not like the flu (still) in a single brutal graph

“This is a flu. This is like a flu,” former President Donald Trump insisted at a Feb. 26, 2020, push briefing, just as the virus hit the U.S. “It’s a very little like a normal flu that we have flu shots for.”

Whilst the two can present with similar symptoms—like fever, cough, tiredness, sore throat, muscle mass aches, and headache—and are equally far more most likely to be fatal for the aged and immunocompromised, the comparison falls apart when it arrives to the dying toll. 

A person graph in distinct reveals just how stark the mortality big difference is between the two. Flu deaths seem pretty much flat compared to surges in COVID fatalities about the earlier a few several years. 

“We’re now striving to take care of [COVID] like a seasonal influenza and it is just not still,” Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Ailment Investigation and Plan (CIDRAP), a short while ago instructed Fortune.

There ended up 1,055 COVID deaths in the U.S. two weeks ago, in accordance to knowledge from the U.S. Centers for Sickness Management and Prevention, in contrast to only 4 flu fatalities the exact same 7 days.

COVID fatalities have spiked many occasions in excess of the previous couple of years due to new variants of the virus, having hundreds of thousands of life annually (463,210 last yr). By contrast, the flu only took an approximated 22,000 life all through the 2019-2020 period, in accordance to the CDC. 

In excess of the past 12 many years, the flu’s estimated once-a-year demise toll has been as reduced as 12,000, but in no way better than 61,000—just an eighth of COVID’s loss of life toll in the initial calendar year of the pandemic.

Due to the fact the earliest times of the pandemic, weekly COVID fatalities have been at minimum 15 occasions that of weekly flu deaths—and occasionally as considerably as 811 periods.

Below for the prolonged haul

COVID’s demise toll is unlikely to sink to flu amounts any time soon, professionals say, even though U.S. wellness officers have expressed hope that COVID boosters will quickly turn into an once-a-year event, a great deal like the flu shot.

“I think COVID fatalities will continue to exceed flu fatalities for a even though, until we see some thing new in influenza,” like a deadlier pressure developing, Dr. Stuart Ray, vice chair of medicine for info integrity and analytics at Johns Hopkins Division of Medication, recently advised Fortune.

When it will come to main triggers of loss of life in the U.S., COVID has landed as No. 3 for the previous two many years, when influenza and pneumonia, grouped jointly, have landed as No. 9, in accordance to the CDC. 

Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious ailment expert and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Centre for Overall health Safety, agrees with Ray. He says COVID is very likely to continue to be a major cause of demise in the U.S. “for the future few of many years,” as the population builds much more immunity and science develops much more effective tools to fight the virus—as very long as the virus does not evade individuals resources.

Finally, the CDC will most likely collapse COVID fatalities into the flu and pneumonia fatalities category, Adalja predicts. But he continue to expects COVID to have an “outsized” loss of life toll when when compared to other infectious ailments in the U.S., like the flu, for the foreseeable potential.

One particular matter is specific, in accordance to Adalja: Regardless of whether COVID continues to be a best killer in the U.S. and globally, or irrespective of whether its fatality level finally sinks to that of the present-working day flu, COVID is right here to stay.

To believe that the new virus will be stamped out, and that everyday living will revert to like it was in 2019, is “magical pondering,” he mentioned. 

“Not in the background of the human species have we experienced a new infectious condition seem that just disappears,” he claimed. “As lengthy as there are humans on this world, there are likely to be COVID-19 bacterial infections on this planet.”