Covid-19 is not as bad as we are told

The NY Times published this chrt bout week go.

A surge in deaths from the Covid-19 pandemic created the largest gap between the actual and expected death rate in 2020 — what epidemiologists call “excess deaths,” or deaths above normal.

This was a big story, and was picked up by everyone else. 

But look at this chart. Two things are striking. First, covid-19 appears to be the greatest natural disaster in history, with deaths far exceeding everything else, including the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. It also appears that a miracle occurred in 1919 that saved millions of lives.

This is all bogus. There was no miracle in 1919, and deaths that year were about what was expected from before 1918. And 2020 only had about 15% more deaths than the year before. 1918 had about 40%.

The NY Times data is supposed to be "age-adjusted", whatever that means. Any genuine age adjustment should make the 1918 flu appear very much worse than the 2020 one, as the 1918 flu mainly killed the young and covid-19 mainly killed the elderly. So if you counted years of life being taken by disease, the 1918 flu might be 50 times worse.

See  this statistician for more info.