The official numbers for deaths in Italy is 5,476, but only 12% of that number show a direct causality from coronavirus. That gives us a real number of 657 people (AT MOST) who have died OF coronavirus In Italy.
The official number of infected is 59,138 which gives a true mortality rate of those infected of about 1%. But as many experts have pointed out, it is likely that MANY more people have contracted the virus without knowing (many of you reading this may be among them), which means that the mortality rate will likely drop A LOT.
Great find. In the following I'll use that number (12%) as an upper limit to make some comparisons. First, several pages ago, anka
quoted this article:
How Many People Die Annually From Flu In Italy
Italy has a pretty high mortality rate for flu, according to
a study that looked into seasonal cases between 2013 and 2017.
...
According to the study, 68 000 deaths were attributable to flu epidemics in the winter months between 2013 and 2014, and 2016 and 2017 respectively.
This is likely due to the fact that Italy has an ageing population, and the elderly are more at risk, generally.
...
In January this year, Italy reported that since flu season started in October 2019,
over 2 million cases of flu were recorded, resulting in 240 deaths. Most of these fatal cases were elderly patients who suffered complications as a result of the virus.
I was not able to recover link to another article which says that in the middle of February Italy was still experiencing rise in flu cases (and surely in deaths from flu).
I quoted that study too in another post. But I think it's about as helpful as the estimates for Covid deaths: i.e., not very helpful at all. The more I look into it, the more I think that flu deaths have been way over-hyped, similar to what's being done with the coronavirus - as a means to push vaccines. As I pointed out in that
post, between 2015 and 2017, total deaths by flu (
as recorded on death certificates) were 675, 316, and 663 respectively. There are probably more deaths that were caused by flu but which were officially recorded as pneumonia, but not nearly the inflated numbers suggested by epidemiological/statistical studies suggesting deaths in the mid to upper ten-thousands. The 8000/year figure seems reasonable to me, given the numbers recorded for death by pneumonia:
2017 - 13,516 pneumonia (total respiratory system diseases was 53,272)
2016 - 10,837 pneumonia (total respiratory system diseases was 46,537)
2015 - 11,632 pneumonia (total respiratory system diseases was 48,518)
The CDC says the mortality rate for the flu is 0.13%. If, for the sake of argument, we count ALL Italian pneumonia deaths in 2017 as flu deaths, and compare that to the estimated
8.7 million cases of flu that season, the percentage is 0.16%. If we use 8000, then it's 0.09%. But the number of deaths actually recorded as caused by flu (663 in 2017) is only 0.008%. Plus, that is not taking into account co-morbidity. You run into the same problem with the data that we find with Covid deaths. Usually around 80% of serious cases of the flu in Italy have at least one serious pre-existing condition. So the actual number could be significantly lower than 8000. And even those deaths officially recorded as flu could include some with existing diseases.
So even though there is still uncertainty in the flu data, we can use those figures to compare:
Official flu deaths as recorded on death certificates: as high as
675 per year
Official covid deaths as recorded on death certificates: 12% of
6077 =
729 and rising
Estimated flu deaths per year: 8000
Just looking at death certificates, Covid is looking to be more serious than the flu, with total deaths passing those caused by flu in only just over 3 weeks (compared to a whole flu season). But comparing with the 8000 estimate, so far it's an order of magnitude less deadly so far.
Trying to take into account comorbidities, covid looks even
less deadly: Since I haven't been able to find out the specific comorbidity data for the official flu deaths in Italy, I'm just going to assume it is around 80% (same as that for serious cases). That means as few as 135 (going by death certificates) and as many as
1600 people (adding in some pneumonia deaths) die every year in Italy strictly as a result of the flu (no pre-existing conditions). And since only 0.8% of the Covid deaths have no co-morbidities, that means Covid can only be said to have actually caused the deaths of
49 otherwise healthy people so far.
