Numbers reveal how much worse COVID is than flu

It seems ridiculous at this point in the pandemic that the faulty comparison to the flu persists beyond the looniest of conspiracy theorists.

We can perhaps blame former U.S. president Donald Trump, given the many times he made the comparison, including after he had been diagnosed with COVID-19 himself.

The belief persists, so it's worthwhile to compare. This may never convince the diehard conspiracy theorists, but the misinformation they promote reaches a much wider audience.

That misinformation — specifically that COVID-19 need not be taken seriously — fuels behaviour like attending parties, as we've seen in Saskatchewan this month.

It can also lead people to believe vaccines pose a more serious health threat than the pandemic, which will only prolong the pain.

In the Saskatchewan context, it boggles the mind to think anyone can seriously suggest this virus compares to the seasonal flu. So let's compare it to a very serious flu, the H1N1 influenza strain that was also declared a pandemic and sparked widespread vaccinations in 2009.

The H1N1 pandemic, which lasted for about a year starting in the spring of 2009, resulted in 15 deaths in Saskatchewan. Most of those 15 had underlying health conditions.

As of Tuesday, 465 deaths have been attributed to COVID-19 in Saskatchewan. That's 31 times more deaths than H1N1.

When reporting deaths related to COVID-19, health officials do not reveal whether those who died had pre-existing conditions. That's unfortunate because it tends to fuel suspicion among some that these are all people who would have died soon anyway.

About half of those who have died from COVID-19 in Saskatchewan were younger than 80. That suggests there's more at play here than simply frail people getting a nudge from a virus.

In the former Saskatoon health region, 909 H1N1 cases were confirmed in a laboratory 12 years ago and 87 people were hospitalized —

144 if you include people who lived outside the region. Most of the hospitalized people also reported underlying conditions.

In the Saskatoon zone during the current pandemic, 9,024 cases had been diagnosed as of Tuesday. Granted, more people have been tested for COVID-19, but we also know with any disease that there's more cases than get recorded.

Hospitalizations are difficult to compare since the COVID-19 statistics cover anyone in a hospital in Saskatoon, regardless of where they live. But on Tuesday alone, there were 45 COVID-19 patients in hospital in Saskatoon.

All of the nine people who died in the Saskatoon health region from H1N1 reported underlying conditions. So far, 93 people have died of COVID-19 in the Saskatoon zone.

Three of those who died of H1N1 in the Saskatoon region were under 18.

Like the current vaccine strategy, the one employed to combat H1N1 was also age-based, but in the opposite direction. The Saskatoon health region began with health-care workers, then moved to vaccinate people younger than 18 and even daycare operators before opening up to the general public.

In the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic and the H1N1 pandemic, younger people suffered more severely than with COVID-19.

The last regular flu season that preceded the pandemic resulted in 1,334 confirmed cases in Saskatchewan, 11 deaths and 24 people who required intensive care as of February 2020. On Tuesday alone, a pandemic-high 51 people were in intensive care in Saskatchewan hospitals.

One other point to remember is that the flu tends to spread mostly unchecked.

During a normal flu season and even a severe one, public health officials send a lot of the same messages we've heard during the pandemic, like the importance of washing hands and staying home if you're sick. But that advice can be ignored and frequently is.

The current pandemic has resulted in serious restrictions in Saskatchewan — though they've generally been laxer than those in other provinces.

Still, large public events at which the virus can spread are prohibited.

Yes, some have flouted the rules, but among the dozens of active outbreaks, almost all are linked to workplaces. Only two are cited as the result of parties. You have to ignore a lot of facts to still believe COVID-19 resembles the flu.