I haven’t outdone myself in a while so it was time apparently. I’m just going to leave this out there and add to it periodically. Read carefully and note the comparison points added for yearly flu history which is worst in Asia and Africa!
In simple terms, there is a “criss cross” chart pattern where when countries are classified by average BMI, the “healthy BMI” range African and Asian countries have very low C19 death rates but very high flu death rates and the “overweight BMI” US and EU countries are vice versa. In fact in each case the “low death rate” is around or below 200 deaths / million. The chart of this is fascinating: note the criss-crossed blue dashed C19 and red flu gross trend arrows. (The cluster of western flu death rates is omitted from the lower right quadrant for readability.)
ENHANCED CHART [210405]:
UPDATE: And what does that look like on an A/B intensity map animation? Pretty much like you would expect just with South America hard hit — check out Peru! — from both angles (with the only small reprieve of the flu having gone “missing” lately everywhere) and China an opaque, totalitarian enigma.
Wow.
Can they possibly be so stupid not to know this or do we have yet another hit in the endless “accidentally on purpose” list we’ve come to know and die from?
BTW, did you know that the flu virus causes 5-15% of colds (!) with coronavirus causing 10-15% (have seen estimates as high as 20%) of them … that have all now also been “disappeared”?
So let’s think this through. C19 displaced up to 30% of the commonly estimated 1 BILLION (!) yearly cold infections in the US at a rough guess. In other words it blocked as many as — or possibly even many more than — 300 MILLION cold infections a year by infecting only 31M US residents to date according to WorldOMeter. And therefore we’re nowhere near herd immunity and it’s the Pfizer’s of the world that will save us rather than that ancient and useless natural immune system!
Say, have I tried to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge lately?
UPDATE [210409]: @kerpen (HT @Dierenbach) has an amazing thread on the disappearance of the flu that also demolishes the “it was the NPI’s that did it”, points out the suppression of all viruses save some rhino and adeno with only a comeback starting very recently for some corona and also points out that the flu is not quite completely gone in … wait for it … Africa and Asia! Now where would one also get the idea that could be a thing? RTWT
He even includes one of my favorite comparative tables on viruses that points out that coronaviruses have an average R0 estimate of 4 with some estimates ranging up to 8 which is higher than smallpox which is basically uncontainable. So the idea that NPI suppress C19 less than corona colds is facile. Can you say “viral inteference” and the Glasgow virus study?
This tangent all started with @scottadamssays latest rampage:
And this for the US:
Obviously, C19 deaths below 65 are 20% or less (<8% in low BMI Larimer Co, CO!) of the total but it’s interesting that obesity is a larger relative driver of hospitalization and death risk under 65 than for those >65. Another way to say it is if you are pre-retirement, not obese and otherwise healthy, it’s propaganda that’s making you panic and not actual risk.
And the CDC quietly confirmed this by admitting that 78% of hospitalizations and deaths are weight related.
Previous chart inspired by: