From reports at the time:

 Jun 20, 2019 · In total, the CDC estimates that up to 42.9 million people got sick during the 2018-2019 flu season, 647,000 people were hospitalized and 61,200 died. That’s fairly on par with a typical season, and well below the CDC’s 2017-2018 estimates of 48.8 million illnesses, 959,000 hospitalizations and 79,400 deaths.

In the earlier 2017-2018 season the actual number of deaths were at epidemic levels.

From Sept, 2018 and the CDC: An estimated 80,000 Americans died of flu and its complications last winter, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This means it was the deadliest season in more than four decades — since 1976, the date of the first published paper reporting total seasonal flu deaths, said CDC Spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund.

(CDC will likely post 2019-2020 season death toll from flu by mid-2020. Bureaucracies require a month-to-6 weeks to tabulate what a good accountant with green eye-shades and calculator could tabulate in about 4 hours. Only no one ever seems to be a hurry at CDC, even during the 2017-2018 flue season, which was epic by their eventual count.)

So far the Wuhan flu has killed “only” 7,000 this season as it moves to a seasonal close as spring temperatures rise outside the Virus “comfort range”. It is still well behind normative seasonal flu levels of around 69,000, and which took 80,000 American lives last year, as noted.

So, it appears to me that the only thing we seem to be doing differently today for this COVID-19 flu that we didn’t do for automobile casualties, or crime deaths, or those regular seasonal flus, cited above, is to post a daily count, state by state, county by county and country-by-country, as if this were a competition. And a mountain of public restraints imposed by state authorities, governors and cities.

All that’s missing are the betting parlors.

People today denounce the lack of reportage on the H1N1 swine flu of 2009-2010, which took an estimated 8868-18,305 American lives, because there was virtually no news about it, and almost always on Page 3. when they did report it

What people really denounce today about the 2009-2010 flu is the hypocrisy of the media for damning what’s being done today, and actually blaming the wrong actors, while judging the actions, or non-actions by the Obama administration and the several states by exactly the opposite criteria. Some people got sick, and some people died and local communities and families mourned. Not a headline there to be found.

But under Obama’s watch no one was required to stay indoors, or stand outside a 6′ comfort zone. People have known for years how to wash their hands and cover their faces when they sneezed, especially during flu season, but year-round actually., and most bathed daily. A few even went down to CVS to get a flu shot once it was available, long after that flu had passed.

Even if for all the wrong reasons, indifference and incompetence, what the Obama Administration didn’t do seemed to be the right way to go.

So until/unless I see the numbers sky-rocket even as the air temperatures are getting warmer, I think it’s time we allowed 99% of America to go back to living the way they had been, “Play Ball!”, and send the medical community back to tending to the sick without making it look like a disaster film, and the government agencies back to trying to find both treatments for this flu as well as vaccines for it, just as they did for HiV patients in the 90s. Personally, I’d just as soon be allowed to dance cheek-to-cheek in a public place. To hell with hot tubs.

This will be my last word on the subject. With the rise of the usual suspects, in all the usual places, trying to find new ways to lay their hands on a new treasure trove of two trillion dollars, and many of those same usual suspects trying to find new ways to steal the upcoming elections on a more permanent basis, and me getting on in years, never any longer sure I’ll be able to see it all through to 2024, I simply have better things to worry about.

 

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