Are regular flu and corona mutually exclusive? If not, that means somebody could have both. Right? How do you determine which one killed you? You seem like a pretty statistically savvy guy. Then you know how statistics can be fucked with. According to the Bloomberg story posted here, 99% of the people with Corona had another underlying illness. Could that underlying illness be the flu?
The point is that Italy has always had an abnormally high rate of flu. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that they are the hardest hit country.
A stat I would be interested in hearing about is how their overall flu statistics compare to previous years.
I don't know if people can have both.
No doubt Coronavirus mortality rate is inflated, since mostly severe cases are being tested. People with mild symptoms probably go unnoticed. The thing is, that may be true also for influenza.
For what is worth, Coronavirus seems to have a mortality rate around 10 times higher than influenza. That's pretty bad.
I feel like a lot of people are confusing regular colds with influenza, and thus underestimate this new disease.
All in all, I agree Italy is not a good example of what can happen in other countries, but I also think drastic measures should be take to stop this disease right in its tracks. However, those measures should be damped down after some weeks, since they're not sustainable.