There are excess mortality numbers that especially given how the covid-19 measures also reduced flu deaths, show that Covid-19 is massively worse than the endemic flu.

[–] HMH@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I don't doubt that, do you have any numbers though, perhaps even for Omicron? I'd absolutely love for Omicron or a following variant to be as mild or milder than the flu because I am really getting tired of all of this.

[–] poVoq@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

Excess mortality only compares the typical number of deaths in previous years with those of of the current year. This is not detailed enough to give any hint about virus variants but it does show if there is something causing an unusual amount of deaths. Both 2020 and 2021 show significant spikes and by all likeliness it is Covid-19 that has caused this.

[–] nutomic@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Its pretty obvious that Covid is getting less dangerous. Just have a look at the daily number of deaths in Spain (source). Meanwhile number of infections per day is reaching record highs, meaning each infection is less and less dangerous.

[–] poVoq@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

This is a normal development with more and more people having partial immunity through recovery or vaccination. If the virus itself is mutating to become less dangerous is at best a minor factor and not clear at all yet.

[–] nutomic@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Covid vaccination started in Spain on 27th December 2021, just in between the second and third wave you can see in the graph. As you can see, the second wave was already much less deadly than the first, and that was without lockdown. And so far only 15% of the population were ever infected with Covid. So its not clear to me that these two factors had a major influence.

[–] poVoq@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

The second/third wave was not less deadly at all, the curve was just flatter due to non-pharmaceutical interventions. It would have far exceeded the first wave if hospitals would have been overwhelmed. As for the 15%... that is very likely an significant underestimation as Spain AFAIK isn't testing randomly for antibodies.