Re: <nettime> forget about Agamben

[mp <mp@aktivix.org>]

On 22/03/2020 11:33, Allan Siegel wrote:

> Last winter 8000 people died in Italy as a consequence of lung
> complications due to influenza, mostly the elderly.  This year,
> with coronavirus, the death rate will probably rise to something
> between 20 and 25 thousand, three times the “normal” number of
> victims, mostly among the elderly.

One study claims that the flu season 2016/17 killed 24981 in Italy and
over four seasons (13/14;14/15;15/16;16/17) more than 68000 died from
flu. That's 17.000 p/a.

Abstract excerpts from:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31401203

"...OBJECTIVES:
In recent years, Italy has been registering peaks in death rates,
particularly among the elderly during the winter season. Influenza
epidemics have been indicated as one of the potential determinants of
such an excess. The objective of our study was to estimate the
influenza-attributable contribution to excess mortality during the
influenza seasons from 2013/14 to 2016/17 in Italy.

RESULTS:
We estimated excess deaths of 7,027, 20,259, 15,801 and 24,981
attributable to influenza epidemics in the 2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16 and
2016/17, respectively, using the Goldstein index. The average annual
mortality excess rate per 100,000 ranged from 11.6 to 41.2 with most of
the influenza-associated deaths per year registered among the elderly.
However children less than 5 years old also reported a relevant
influenza attributable excess death rate in the 2014/15 and 2016/17
seasons (1.05/100,000 and 1.54/100,000 respectively).

CONCLUSIONS:

Over 68,000 deaths were attributable to influenza epidemics in
the study period. The observed excess of deaths is not completely
unexpected, given the high number of fragile very old subjects living
in Italy. In conclusion, the unpredictability of the influenza virus
continues to present a major challenge to health professionals and
policy makers. ..."

Note the general rise ... Flu has been a pandemic across the
world for years, in conjunction with air pollution, malnutrition,
over-medication and other stresses on the human immune system. A
perfect storm...?

Is Covid-19 "just" icing on the cake?


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