Some good news for our NHS – Covid measures ‘may drastically cut flu deaths this winter’

Ultan Power, a professor at Queen’s University Belfast, said reports from Earth’s southern hemisphere (where winter occurs in June, July and August) indicate vastly lower numbers of cases and fatalities.

Winter flu has been referenced many, many times during the course of the coronavirus pandemic, often by people who oppose further lockdown and who see Covid-19 as little worse than the annual seasonal flu.

But Prof Power indicated the rate of Covid fatalities is “very high compared with influenza”.

Referring to a report in The Guardian newspaper last month (which tallies with other news sources), Prof Power told the News Letter: “If you look at the southern hemisphere data, there’s clear evidence the amount of flu has been reduced substantially.

“For example in Australia last year there were 131,000 influenza cases in July and August 2019. And this year, 315.

“In fatalities, in 2019 there was over 950 and less than 40 in 2020. Apparently there have been similar stories in South Africa and South America.”

This drop is believed to be down to the lockdown measures targeting coronavirus.

“If you couple that with increasing people getting their flu vaccine, it could have a very, very substantial impact on the increased consequences of having flu circulating at the same time as Covid,” he said.

He also hopes the anti-Covid measures will have a beneficial effect on the numbers of people contracting respiratory syncytial virus (or RSV), a common infection affecting infants and the elderly.

But this optimistic scenario is tempered by his prediction that coronavirus will “without a doubt” kill more people than ordinarily die of winter flu – so there will be no ‘balancing out’ between the two illnesses.

He said: “For as long as the pandemic virus is circulating, it’s going to be the major player in terms of deaths.”

When it comes to what kind of restrictions may be in place at Christmastime, he said “an awful lot will depend on how these current restrictions are followed”.

The major objective is making sure the NHS is not “swamped” with so many Covid patients that normal procedures become impossible.

He said: “It’s looking like the case fatality rate of the virus is around 0.7 to 0.8%. While in and of itself it means the vast majority of people survive the virus, 0.7 or 0.8% of the huge number becoming infected is a huge concern in terms of lethality.

“The message is it does need to be taken very, very seriously.”

Figures covering the second quarter of 2020 (April, May and June) show that during that period there were 732 deaths where the cause is listed as Covid-19.

It was the third-highest cause of death, behind neoplasms (essentially cancers, at 1,206 deaths) and circulatory diseases (945 deaths).

The data also shows that in the initial phase of the pandemic (April, May, June), drug-related deaths were higher than usual – 65 for those three months, compared with 45 in Q2 2019 and 49 in Q2 2018).

Alcohol-related deaths and suicides were not out-of-the-ordinary for quarter two of this year.

In Q2 2018 there were 79 suicides. In Q2 2019 there were 48.

And in Q2 this year there were 65.

In Q2 2018 there were 74 alcohol-related deaths. In Q2 2019 there were 93.

And in Q2 this year there were 78.

In terms of gauging winter flu deaths, the stats also show that in Q1 and Q4 of 2019 (covering Jan-March and Oct-Dec) there were 1,146 “respiratory disease” deaths (not all of which will neccesarily be seasonal flu), and 824 “respiratory disease” deaths during Q2 and Q3.

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