Yes, thank you, you make very good points and I can see how it is faulty reasoning. That's why I'm on this board. I am a big believer in good evidence and good reasoning. The reason I'm skeptical of this pandemic is because so far I haven't found the evidence persuasive that one exists. I think we will see total combined deaths between flu and coronavirus in the US for the 2019-2020 season of 65,000-80,000, clearly a heavy flu/respiratory illness season, but not the disaster predicted. And then, as I said before, all the people who were wrong will still say I was the one who was wrong because all of the lockdowns are what caused the low number of deaths. I don't see a way out of this conundrum.
One way would be to see the difference in infection and (sadly) deaths between countries that had an early response to the problem vs ones that had a delayed response.
TL;DR
- Canada and the US have similar infrastructure and similar culture
- These similarities include a similar approach to the annual influenza season, such as vaccination programs
- The population of the USA is 8.6 times that of Canada
- Depending on the source used, the ratio of deaths from influenza and pneumonia in Canada vs the USA are 1:6.2, 1:7.7, or 1:13, roughly similar to the 1:8.6 ratio in the overall population
- Observation: similar responses to influenza in two similar countries show similar death rates
- Due to leadership differences, Canada had a demonstrably quicker response to COVID-19 than the US
- At this stage in the epidemic, the ratio of deaths from COVID-19 in Canada vs the USA is an astonishing 1:46; that is, for every Canadian who has died from COVID-19, 46 Americans have died
- Observation: different responses to COVID-19 in two similar countries have led to difference outcomes
- Conclusion: COVID-19 is not like the flu
The details
As I've done more than once, I invite you to look at the difference between Canada and the USA. There are many similarities between the two countries: a random photograph of a small town or medium sized city in the US is almost indistinguishable from one taken in Canada, although there might a few "tells" such as speed limit signs or the presence of a Target store (US only) vs Canadian Tire.
One of these similarities is the influenza season and the publicly available vaccine. Here in Canada the vaccine is pretty much free for the asking, and I suspect it's covered by every health insurance plan in the US. According to
Vaccine uptake in Canadian Adults 2019, the overall vaccination rate in Canadian adults was 42%, while
the CDC says it was 45.3% in the USA. Therefore, all other things being equal, the flu season should have an equal effect in Canada and the USA, with very similar numbers for deaths per 100,000 population.
Unfortunately, comparing influenza deaths (and deaths from "influenza like illnesses") between the two countries is a perplexing task because sites I've looked at display different results.
statistica.com shows "Death rate for influenza and pneumonia in Canada 2000-2017"with a number of 20.2 per 100,000 in Canada and 14.3 per 100,000 in the US (both are for year 2017.) However,
wordlifeexpetcency.com's Influenza and Pneumonia graph shows 9.3 for Canada and 14.9 for the USA (year unknown.) The USA number is consistent between the two sites, but for Canada one site's number is double that of the other.
worldatlas.comshows 6,235 deaths from influenza and pneumonia in Canada, which translates to 16.4 per 100,000.
For American deaths from influenza and pneumonia, I'll split the difference between the statistica.com number of 14.3 and the wordlifeexpetcency.com number of 14.9 and use 14.6. Ergo, a rough estimate of the total number of deaths from influenza is:
Code:
328,239,523 ÷ 100,000 × 14.6 = 47,922.970358, or 47,923
Depending on the source used, the number of deaths in Canada from influenza and pneumonia can be summarized as follows, based on the current population estimate.
Table 1. Estimate of Canadian deaths from influenza and pneumonia
Rate
|
Deaths
9.3
|
3,533
16.4
|
6,229
20.2
|
7,672
Next, I'm going to talk about the Canada to USA population ratio. Wikipedia says the population of Canada "Q1 2020 estimate" is 37,984,728, and the USA "2019 estimate" is 328,239,523. That translates to 8.6 Americans for every one Canadian. (I've been using 8.7 for a while now, but from now on I'll be using the 8.6 number.) All other things being equal, if something happens 1,000 Canadians, we would normally expect the same thing to happen to 8,600 American. (Of course, that's not true for everything: gun deaths in the USA are far than in Canada.)
So, let's take the three different values for Canadian deaths, compare them to the estimated value for American deaths, and compute a ratio for Canada versus the US.
Table 2. Ratio of deaths from influenza and pneumonia for Canada vs the United States
Canadian rate
|
Canadian deaths
|
US Deaths
|
Actual Canada:US ratio
|
Expected ratio
|
9.3
|
3,533
|
47,923
|
1:13
| 1:8.6 |
16.4
|
6,229
|
47,923
|
1:7.7
| 1:8.6 |
20.2
|
7,672
|
47,923
|
1:6.2
| 1:8.6 |
Aside from 1:13 ratio,
the ratio of Canadian to US deaths is close to the population ratio of 1:8.6.
Now let's look at the ratio of Canadian deaths to the US deaths for COVID-19. While the president of the United States spent six weeks in February and March denying there was a problem (up to the declaration of a national emergency on March 13,) Canada was enacting measures to slow the spread. Canada first tried a containment strategy starting in early February, but it was too little and too late, so the government switched to a flatten the curve strategy. Pandemic response plans were in place as early as February 24 and aggressive measures started in the early March.
Table 3. Ratio of deaths from COVID-19 for Canada vs the United States as of April 1, 2020 23:55 EDT
Metric
|
Canada
|
Expected US number based on 1:8.7 ratio
|
Actual US Number
|
Actual Canada:US ratio
COVID-19 cases|
9,713
|
85,532
|
216,154
|
1:22
|
COVID-19 deaths|
111
|
955
|
5,115
|
1:46
Here's my conclusion: Canada and the US have a similar level of overall development, culture, and response to influenza. This is reflected in similar numbers for death from influenza, based on a ratio of the population. However, due to different responses to the current pandemic, the US is seeing a far different death rate from COVID-19:
for every Canadian who has died from COVID-19, 46 Americans have died. I conclude this is an epidemic, and it's hitting the US harder than Canada.
