Fun fact: while the IFR of the seasonal flu is around 0.1%, there's around a 2.5% chance you will die from it.
The thing about endemic diseases is that we get them over and over and over. Eventually it gets you.
I was really hopeful at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic that we would start taking the flu more seriously. There was essentially no flu season that year because of the precautions taken for COVID; we are actually removing one of the strains from flu vaccines next year because it went extinct.
Things have changed since 2019. In 2023, only around 1.5% of deaths were from the flu; of course, another 1.5% of deaths were from COVID. So as things stand now, instead of a 2.5% chance that we will eventually be killed by our major endemic respiratory disease, there's a 3% chance we will eventually be killed by one of our two major endemic respiratory diseases.
The thing about endemic diseases is that we get them over and over and over. Eventually it gets you.
I was really hopeful at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic that we would start taking the flu more seriously. There was essentially no flu season that year because of the precautions taken for COVID; we are actually removing one of the strains from flu vaccines next year because it went extinct.
Things have changed since 2019. In 2023, only around 1.5% of deaths were from the flu; of course, another 1.5% of deaths were from COVID. So as things stand now, instead of a 2.5% chance that we will eventually be killed by our major endemic respiratory disease, there's a 3% chance we will eventually be killed by one of our two major endemic respiratory diseases.