We could have just as easily produced a pandemic out of the 2017-2018 flu season

It is undeniable that we are recording COVID-19 deaths in a way that is fundamentally different from how we have recorded influenza deaths in past flu seasons. …

In summary, if we had treated the flu back in 2017-2018 like we are treating COVID-19 now, we could have seen 150,000 to 250,000 flu deaths and a corresponding level of panic. In other words, if we overreacted to the flu in 2017-2018 like we are overreacting now to COVID-19, we could have had the same level of panic, harm, and death. …

The story of 2020 won’t be COVID-19; it will be our reaction to COVID-19.  COVID-19 is comparable to a bad flu season–at the very worst, twice as bad.  Yet we made it into a worldwide panic-filled disaster. …

Instead of treating COVID-19 rationally, we panicked and killed tens of thousands of Americans, put hundreds of thousands more in jeopardy due to missed healthcare and emotional and financial hardship, stunted the education and future of millions of kids, and allowed tens of thousands of seniors to die in isolation, all to protect those in between childhood and old age from a disease that, for anybody modestly healthy under around 60, was comparable to the flu. It is an incredibly disturbing act of societal selfishness.

If in March 2020, instead of predicting 2.2 million COVID-19 deaths for the U.S. by the end of August 2020, the experts predicted 100,000 per year, we would have warned the vulnerable, advocated for better hygiene and personal responsibility, and carried on with our lives.

STORY with lots of data