People really are such utter idiots. Especially when they have an agenda to push. The latest was some clown trotting out the old line about how there have been ‘no flu deaths this year’ so the COVID-19 statistics must be wrong or made up.
Being a scientist, I prefer facts to made up stuff. And the facts are shown in the chart above, which I copied from this BBC ‘factcheck’ article. It was a response to the comments made by virus denier, and draws on official ONS data.
The darker bar represents flu and pneumonia deaths for this year up until August. You can see how it gradually fell as the year progressed, which is what happens every year as we leave one flu season and move into another. The pale bar represents COVID-19 deaths. The raw data can be easily viewed on the ONS website if you know how to search for it. Incidentally, if you follow that link, make sure to click for the latest release if there is one – these reports are continually updated with new figures as they come in.
It’s worth noting that ‘influenza’ is actually a fairly uncommon direct cause of death. I’ve noticed this when looking through other ONS data previously. It is usually pneumonia which is given as the cause, since it is the main complication arising from flu.
In 2020, until the end of August, there were 14,000 deaths from flu/pneumonia. There were 48,000 deaths due to COVID-19.