Therefore, the corona is more dangerous than the flu – VG

The president’s post was removed from Facebook and hidden by Twitter.

Also in the VG comment field, this is a recurring theme, with questions about why people shut down the country for coronavirus, when so many people die from the flu every year.

– Covid-19 is worse and more dangerous than seasonal flu, says assistant director Espen Rostrup Nakstad.

– It is very important to correct incorrect and speculative information that is being spread internationally, he tells VG.

Is the flu or corona the deadliest?

It is the coronavirus.

– Both Covid-19 and the flu can cause serious illness, but unlike Covid-19, many people are well protected against the flu after being previously diagnosed with the flu and receiving the flu vaccine, Nakstad notes. .

Presents a calculation where influenza mortality is estimated in Norway 0.17 percent, while the mortality of the coronavirus can, depending on the figures used, be estimated 0.3 percent, 1.8 percent or about 1 percent. Even the lowest estimate gives the coronavirus twice the death rate.

Read more about the figures in the data tables here:

So far, 275 people have died from the coronavirus in Norway. But these are the deaths that Norway has had under strict measures and restrictions.

The case continues after the video …

Most interesting, Nakstad notes, is how many people would have died from a corona pandemic if the virus had been allowed to spread freely in the population.

That is, if no measures were implemented.

– That is, a situation in which the entire population can, in principle, become infected within a year and develop everything from the absence of symptoms in many to a life-threatening disease in some.

– If we assume a mortality of 0.3 percent, that extension will result in approximately 16,000 deaths. That equates to nearly 20 times more deaths than flu in a normal season, Nakstad notes.

– When many people die of the flu every year, why is it necessary to close and implement such strong measures for the coronavirus?

– Because few people have had Covid-19 and no one has been vaccinated yet in Norway, the coronavirus will be able to spread to many more people and lead to more serious illness and more deaths like a free-spreading flu.

– We see this clearly in the excess mortality reported in many countries in March and April 2020, a time when a relatively small proportion of the population in these countries had been infected by the coronavirus, says Nakstad.

Some countries and areas have experienced a dramatic increase in the number of deaths during the pandemic, such as Spain and Italy (see data box).

– Do you think more people will die from the flu than from the coronavirus this winter?

– It’s hard to say. If we can reduce corona infection, fewer people will also be infected with seasonal flu. In fact, it can also result in a lower death rate from both illnesses combined compared to a normal flu year, Nakstad says.

– In Norway, total mortality according to FHI (with some exceptions) is calculated as normal or lower in the last year. What would this have been like if we had not taken strong action against the coronavirus?

– Norway was in a very dire situation in March 2020 with a faster rise in infection and a higher hospitalization rate than most other countries, until development reversed on March 31, Nakstad notes.

– If on March 12 we had not introduced measures such as individuals or society, and the infection curve had continued to rise for a few more weeks, we would probably be in a situation similar to that experienced by Italy a few weeks earlier, he says.