COVID and Pneumonia and Influenza… oh my

OK. Lots of charts making their way around comparing deaths Year-over-Year for COVID, pneumonia and influenza.

I pulled the data from the CDC for the last 3 years comparing influenza, pneumonia, COVID-19 and ALL Deaths.

Let’s start with 2020 vs 2018 (one of the higher flu seasons in the past 10 years)

Note that the CDC only publishes their death data from about 2 weeks ago so we still have a LOT to go through… which is why this is a gut-check report and not a final word.

So first thing to notice is that the 2020 data will normalize over time. The “lagging” deaths may (or may not) roll up — so we’ll see.

Note that influenza deaths in 2018 were significant that year.

When these add up cumulatively you can see that things kind of “even out”.

Note here:
- 2018 had 20K more deaths overall than 2020.
- Pneumonia deaths in 2020 overtook 2018 a week ago (more on this later though)
- Influenza total deaths in 2018 were 2200 higher than 2020 deaths