onthemove wrote:But let's not put it out of perspective. Covid wasn't seriously worse than the flu even before the vaccines
https://www.health.org.uk/publications/ ... oved-wrong
In a particularly bad flu year on average around 30,000 people in the UK die from flu and pneumonia, with a loss of around 250,000 life years. This is just a sixth of the life years lost to COVID-19.
We have more detailed data for England and Wales. This shows us that, even looking only at those aged older than 75 (who account for most COVID and flu deaths), COVID-19 has been much more deadly. Take 2018, a ‘bad’ flu year, when around 25,000 of those older than 75 died. They lost a total of 140,000 years of life, an average of 5.75 years per person. This is less than a quarter of the life years lost among those older than 75 from COVID-19. And that is despite the huge mitigation measures – lockdowns etc – used to manage COVID-19. Had we treated COVID-19 like we treat flu, and not introduced those measures, the death toll would have been much higher.
In terms of mortality, COVID-19 was particularly bad for men, compared with flu. The years of life lost for men older than 75 was around five times higher than in 2018’s bad flu year; for women it was four times higher.