Covid vs. Flu Deaths - An Update from our Epidemiologist

We may be done with COVID, but COVID isn’t done with us. While we’ve learned to live with this no-longer novel coronavirus, some data we’ve seen shows us in quite stark terms, COVID is not the flu and we can’t treat it the same way.

State health officials have targeted July 1 as the start of the COVID season but unlike the flu, COVID doesn’t go away for long stretches.

Since July 1 through the first week of February, there have been 865 COVID-related deaths in Massachusetts, compared to 100 from influenza. Since October 1, the epidemiologic start of the flu season, 94 people, an average of five a week, have died from influenza while 637 people, an average of 34 a week, have died from COVID. The mortality rate is also alarming. About three-100ths of a percent of reported influenza cases result in death while nearly 1 percent of reported COVID cases are fatal.

Yet despite the difference, more than twice as many people in our region – 38.4 percent – have received the flu vaccine compared to 18.4 percent who have received the updated COVID vaccine for the current variants. At its peak this season, COVID accounted for 10 percent of weekly deaths in Massachusetts.

If you’re not vaccinated for either disease, talk to your doctor or call us at the Health Department for education materials. If you choose not to be vaccinated, please follow CDC and state health guidelines for exposure and infection. We urge everyone to protect themselves, their families, and their communities.

John Sullivan, BVPPH Regional Epidemiologist