The mortality rate from influenza in the United States is by far highest among those aged 65 years and older. During the 2023-2024 flu season, the mortality rate from influenza for this age group was around 32.1 per 100,000 population. The burden of influenza The impact of influenza in the U.S. varies from season to season, but in the 2023-2024 flu season, there were an estimated 40 million cases. These cases resulted in around 470,000 hospitalizations. Although most people recover from influenza without requiring medical treatment, the disease can be deadly for young children, the elderly, and those with weakened immune systems or chronic illnesses. During the 2023-2024 flu season, around 28,000 people in the U.S. lost their lives due to influenza. Impact of vaccinations The most effective way to prevent influenza is to receive an annual vaccination at the beginning of flu season. Flu vaccines are safe and can greatly reduce the burden of the disease. During the 2022-2023 flu season, vaccinations prevented around 2,479 deaths among those aged 65 years and older. Although flu vaccines are usually cheap and easily accessible, every year a large share of the population in the U.S. still does not get vaccinated. For example, during the 2022-2023 flu season, only about 35 percent of those aged 18 to 49 years received a flu vaccination.

The burden of influenza in the United States can vary from year to year depending on which viruses are circulating, how many people receive an influenza vaccination, and how effective the vaccination is in that particular year. During the 2023-2024 flu season, around 28,000 people lost their lives to the disease. Although most people recover from influenza without needing medical care, the disease can be deadly among young children, the elderly, and those with weakened immune systems or chronic illnesses. Deaths due to influenza Even though most people recover from influenza without medical care, influenza and pneumonia can be deadly, especially for older people and those with certain preexisting conditions. Influenza is a common cause of pneumonia and although most cases of influenza do not develop into pneumonia, those that do are often more severe and more deadly. Deaths due to influenza are most common among the elderly, with a mortality rate of around 32 per 100,000 population during the 2023-2024 flu season. In comparison, the mortality rate for those aged 50 to 64 years was 9.1 per 100,000 population. Flu vaccinations The most effective way to prevent influenza is to receive an annual influenza vaccination. These vaccines have proven to be safe and are usually cheap and easily accessible. Nevertheless, every year a large share of the population in the United States still fails to get vaccinated against influenza. For example, in the 2022-2023 flu season, only 35 percent of those aged 18 to 49 years received a flu vaccination. Unsurprisingly, children and the elderly are the most likely to get vaccinated. It is estimated that during the 2022-2023 flu season, vaccinations prevented over 929 thousand influenza cases among children aged 6 months to 4 years.

Over 12 million people in the United States died from all causes between the beginning of January 2020 and August 21, 2023. Over 1.1 million of those deaths were with confirmed or presumed COVID-19.

Vaccine rollout in the United States Finding a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine was an urgent health priority since the very start of the pandemic. In the United States, the first two vaccines were authorized and recommended for use in December 2020. One has been developed by Massachusetts-based biotech company Moderna, and the number of Moderna COVID-19 vaccines administered in the U.S. was over 250 million. Moderna has also said that its vaccine is effective against the coronavirus variants first identified in the UK and South Africa.

Deaths counts for influenza, pneumonia, and COVID-19 reported to NCHS by week ending date, by state and HHS region, and age group.

Influenza, also called the flu, is one of the most infectious diseases worldwide. Its symptoms range from mild to severe, and include sore throat, cough, runny nose, fever, headache, and muscle pain, but can also cause severe illness and death among high-risk populations such as the elderly and children. During the 2023-2024 flu season, there were 40 million cases of influenza in the United States. Influenza deaths Although influenza does not require medical attention for most people, it can be deadly, and causes thousands of deaths every year. The impact of influenza varies from year to year. The number of influenza deaths during the 2023-2024 flu season was 27,965. The vast majority of deaths attributed to influenza during the 2023-2024 flu season occurred among those aged 65 years and older. Vaccination An annual influenza vaccination remains the most effective way of preventing influenza. During the 2022-2023 flu season, influenza vaccinations prevented an estimated 2,479 deaths among U.S. adults aged 65 years and older. Although, flu vaccinations are accessible and cheap, a large share of the United States population still fails to get vaccinated every year. In 2022-2023, only 35 percent of those aged 18 to 49 years received a flu vaccination, much lower compared to children and the elderly.

Influenza and pneumonia caused around 10.9 deaths in the U.S. per 100,000 population in 2023. Influenza, or the flu, is a viral infection that is highly contagious and especially common in the winter season. Influenza is a common cause of pneumonia, although most cases of the flu do not develop into pneumonia. Pneumonia is an infection or inflammation of the lungs and is particularly deadly among young children and the elderly. Influenza cases Influenza is very common in the United States, with an estimated 40 million cases reported in 2023-2024. Common symptoms of the flu include cough, fever, runny or stuffy nose, sore throat and headache. Symptoms can be mild but can also be severe enough to require medical attention. In 2023-2024, there were around 18 million influenza-related medical visits in the United States. Prevention To prevent contracting the flu, people can take everyday precautions such as regularly washing their hands and avoiding those who are sick, but the best way to prevent the flu is by receiving the flu vaccination every year. Receiving a flu vaccination is especially important for young children and the elderly, as they are most susceptible to flu complications and associated death. In 2024, around 70 percent of those aged 65 years and older received a flu vaccine, while only 33 percent of those aged 18 to 49 years had done so.

This dataset contains the following files for California influenza surveillance data: 1) Outpatient Influenza-like Illness Surveillance Data by Region and Influenza Season from volunteer sentinel providers; 2) Clinical Sentinel Laboratory Influenza and Other Respiratory Virus Surveillance Data by Region and Influenza Season from volunteer sentinel laboratories; and 3) Public Health Laboratory Influenza Respiratory Virus Surveillance Data by Region and Influenza Season from California public health laboratories. The Immunization Branch at the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) collects, compiles and analyzes information on influenza activity year-round in California and produces a weekly influenza surveillance report during October through May. The California influenza surveillance system is a collaborative effort between CDPH and its many partners at local health departments, public health and clinical laboratories, vital statistics offices, healthcare providers, clinics, emergency departments, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). California data are also included in the CDC weekly influenza surveillance report, FluView, and help contribute to the national picture of Influenza activity in the United States. The information collected allows CDPH and CDC to: 1) find out when and where influenza activity is occurring; 2) track influenza-related illness; 3) determine what influenza viruses are circulating; 4) detect changes in influenza viruses; and 5) measure the impact influenza is having on hospitalizations and deaths.

Following the outbreak of the H1N1 influenza pandemic of 1918, which came to be known as the Spanish Flu, the number of deaths due to influenza and pneumonia soared. Pneumonia was caused either by the influenza or by a bacterial superinfection that took hold due to the patient's weakened state as a result of the influenza, for this reason, influenza deaths and pneumonia deaths were recorded together as one. Pennsylvania had the highest mortality rate due to the pandemic, where there were over 880 fatalities per 100,000 people; meaning that approximately 0.9 percent of the state's population died from the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918.

When compared with the 1915 mortality rates, many states, such as California and Pennsylvania, saw their mortality rate due to influenza and pneumonia increase five-fold by 1818, which was the worst year of the pandemic. While the mortality rate decreased significantly in the year 1919, there was no US state where it fell to it's pre-pandemic level, and the 1919 mortality rate was still double the pre-pandemic rate in some states such as California, South Carolina and Washington.

Provisional counts of the number of death occurrences in England and Wales due to coronavirus (COVID-19) and influenza and pneumonia, by age, sex and place of death.

This file contains the provisional percent of total deaths by week for COVID-19, Influenza, and Respiratory Syncytial Virus for deaths occurring among residents in the United States. Provisional data are based on non-final counts of deaths based on the flow of mortality data in National Vital Statistics System.

Context

New York has presented the most cases compared to all states across the U.S..There have also been critiques regarding how much more unnoticed impact the flu has caused. My dataset allows us to compare whether or not this is true according to the most recent data.

Content

This COVID-19 data is from Kaggle whereas the New York influenza data comes from the U.S. government health data website. I merged the two datasets by county and FIPS code and listed the most recent reports of 2020 COVID-19 cases and deaths alongside the 2019 known influenza cases for comparison.

Acknowledgements

I am thankful to Kaggle and the U.S. government for making the data that made this possible openly available.

Inspiration

This data can be extended to answer the common misconceptions of the scale of the COVID-19 and common flu. My inspiration stems from supporting conclusions with data rather than simply intuition.

I would like my data to help answer how we can make U.S. citizens realize what diseases are most impactful.

Between January and August 2020, there has been approximately 48.2 thousand deaths in England and Wales with COVID-19 as an underlying cause. As illustrated in the table, the number of deaths as a result of COVID-19 are much higher than from either pneumonia or influenza. There has been over three times the number of deaths from COVID-19 than pneumonia and influenza so far in 2020. The overall number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the UK can be found here. For further information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

Australia Influenza Mortality jumped by 8% in 2019, from a year earlier.

In 2024, the number of deaths from influenza in Japan increased to ***** cases. This marked an increase compared to just **** cases in the previous year.

This statistic shows the deaths with influenza as an underlying cause in England and Wales in 2023, by age and gender. In this year, influenza was the underlying cause of *** deaths for women aged 90 years and over. Respiratory disease burden in the UK As of 2023, tuberculosis cases had also been on the rise, with ***** new cases and relapses reported in 2023. The ***** age group was most affected by this respiratory disease, accounting for approximately ***** cases. Pneumonia, another serious respiratory condition, caused over ***** deaths among women aged 90 and older in the same year, with a further ***** men in the same age group having pneumonia as their underlying cause of death. Vaccination prevalence and accessibility In the years 2014-2015, **** percent of individuals aged 65 and over in the North West of England were immunized against influenza. This was the region with the highest share of elderly vaccinated against influenza, while this figure was the lowest in London, around **** percent. Community pharmacies have played a crucial role in providing seasonal influenza vaccination services – as of 2023/24, ** percent of community pharmacies in the South of England offered influenza vaccination advanced service, while in London, the figure reached ** percent.

There were ***** influenza deaths in Germany in 2023. This was a decrease compared to the year before. During the specified timeline, figures peaked in 2018, at more than ************** deaths due to influenza.