COVID Has Killed Way More People Than the Flu in El Paso

There are a lot of numbers to go through when it comes to COVID-19. It is true that the amount of confirmed positive cases will go up when there is more testing. You can't deny that. But if you stop there and claim that it's not a problem because of that, you are missing a major piece of this pie. We know the number of positive cases are constantly up in El Paso. But what about hospitalizations?

You just have to look at the fact that the City of El Paso had to convert the Convention Center into a makeshift hospital, there are tents outside the actual hospitals, and non-COVID patients are being shipped to other cities because we are out of space at the hospitals.

What about deaths? This is where the numbers get real scary. You constantly see people claim that COVID is no more harmful than the seasonal flu. Well, that's not even close to the case. As I'm writing this, El Paso has had 605 deaths. The flu hasn't come anywhere close to that in a single year. You can add up all the deaths from 2005 to 2018 and it's not close to 605 deaths.

2005 - 10
2006 - 8
2007 - 23
2008 - 88
2009 - 24
2010 - 2
2011 - 2
2012 - 1
2013 - 5
2014 - 20
2015 - 6
2016 - 3
2017 - 4
2018 - 16

That is only 212 deaths over 14 years. So no, COVID-19 is not as equally harmless as the flu. The numbers show otherwise. And this also doesn't include the people who survive and are still dealing with health issues. Plus, we aren't sure what kind of permanent damage is caused by COVID-19. So, let me wrap this up like almost every article I write these days. Please, follow the guidelines: