Originally Posted by DangaZone

The point is one of maintaining perspective.

For all the talk about daily and cumulative death tolls, there CLEARLY is a demographic that is bearing a massively disproportionate burden of mortality based on CFR; that same demographic also bears a disproportionate burden of hospitalized cases as evidenced by the (few) states that provide that data.

The CDC infographic may be behind in cases and deaths, but the percentages have been remarkably consistent over the last few months.

There were 188 US pediatric deaths from influenza in the 19-20 flu season, the same record death toll as the 17-18 flu season, despite approved vaccines and antivirals. To this point in the pandemic, there have been fewer US pediatric deaths from COVID-19 than from influenza. This is a good thing that frequently gets ignored by the media, as it means much fewer average "years lost" from a pandemic death which is a marked difference from, for example, 1918 H1N1.

For all the comparisons made to influenza, SARS-CoV-2 statistically is much less virulent for pediatric patients and much much more virulent for elderly patients. Does that minimize the grief parents of children killed by COVID feel? No, absolutely not, just like it doesn't minimize the grief children of elderly killed by COVID feel.


Doctors are begging us to take it seriously.

If we as as society ACTUALLY believe in the importance of facts and "what is" and truly believe in "following the science", this is the kind of objective data people need to be reminded of in order to draw their own informed conclusions.