Expert Says COVID Now Less Deadly Than Flu

In the United Kingdom, COVID-19 could be less harmful than flu, said infectious diseases expert Professor Paul Hunter.

According to the Daily Mail, government figures indicate the virus had a mortality rate of around 0.2 per cent before the ultra-transmissible strain erupted onto the scene.

‘Seasonal influenza's infection-fatality rate (IFR) sits between 0.01 and 0.05 per cent, suggesting that the two viruses now pose a similar threat.’

But this has since plunged seven-fold to as little as 0.03 per cent, meaning it kills effectively just one in every 3,300 people who get infected.

Hunter, from the University of East Anglia, told MailOnline it meant that Covid could be even less deadly than the flu. Although, he warned another variant could reverse the progress.

Infections have been on the rise in the UK for a week straight, with the country now averaging 50,000 cases per day compared to around 35,000 on Freedom Day in late February.

Hospitalizations have also been rising and in the South West of England have now eclipsed levels at the height of the Omicron wave.

Professor Robert Dingwall, a former SAGE adviser and sociologist at Nottinham Trent University, said the UK was now seeing a "transition" to a world where Covid was just one more respiratory disease.

Source: IANS