Shoutout to the CDC flu page for making me dig into the real numbers behind that '40,000 deaths' headline

Felix Lane · 2026-10-08T21:20:02.24716+00:00

Every fall I see people share that scary flu death stat, so last month I finally pulled the actual CDC report and found it's a modeled estimate, not a body count, and most of those deaths are in the 65+ group. I stopped treating the headline like a raw tally and started checking the age breakdown before I repeat it. Anyone else notice how often a big scary number turns out to be a model instead of a count?

Vivisector

Loading…

Shoutout to the CDC flu page for making me dig into the real numbers behind that '40,000 deaths' headline | Debate the Data - Vivisector