by jbm64
NEW: a common response to reports of hospitals struggling this winter is "it’s no different to a bad flu season!"
I’ve tracked down historical data on flu ICU admissions, including winter 2017-18, a record high.
Here’s how England’s Covid winter compares to a bad flu season 📹 pic.twitter.com/tsExrDZM31
— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) January 7, 2021
Hi folks, I made this using the d3.js Javascript library. The source data is from Public Health England’s weekly flu & Covid surveillance reports for 2020-21 (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-flu-and-covid-19-surveillance-reports) and extracted from previous years’ annual flu reports (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/annual-flu-reports)
I’ve done additional animations on the same theme, as well as some broader explanations, in a thread on Twitter here https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1347200811303055364