Flu vs COVID. How do they compare? Interview with Professor Paul Glasziou

 

The COVID 19 pandemic has mostly disappeared from Australia’s news media over the last few months. We don’t have daily briefings with updates on the numbers of cases and deaths. We don’t wear masks. We don’t check in to venues and shops. And most of us are triple vaccinated. With a potential fourth shot becoming available.

Indeed, many of us – over 8 million Australians – have had COVID and survived.

So, everything is fine right?

Not really. Australia has now surpassed 10-thousand deaths from COVID-19, with most of those fatalities reported in the past six months.

And the daily rate of infections continues in the tens of thousands across the country.

Almost 3,000 Australians died of COVID in the first quarter of 2022, placing it between coronary heart disease and stroke as a major cause of death.

And on average some 50 people a day are dying from COVID. That’s one person every 30 minutes. And epidemiologists predict we will see tens of thousands more suffering from long COVID.

They say our health systems, schools and businesses are already struggling and the situation will get a lot worse.

And on top of COVID, there’s the re-emergence of the Flu. Sometimes debilitating. After virtually vanishing throughout the pandemic, the relaxing of COVID rules has allowed influenza to re-emerge in the community.

But how do they compare? Just how deadly are COVID and influenza?  To discuss this I’m joined by Professor Paul Glasziou from Bond University