Claim: “The flu killed 80,000 people in the U.S. last year”
Verdict: REFUTES

Retrieved passages:
title: 2009 flu pandemic
text: It is often stated that about 36,000 die from the seasonal flu in the U.S. each year, and this is frequently understood as an indication that the H1N1 strain was not as severe as seasonal influenza. The 36,000 estimate was presented in a 2003 study by CDC scientists published in the "Journal of the American Medical Association" but only refers to a period from 1990–91 through 1998–99. During those years, the number of estimated deaths ranged from 17,000 to 52,000, with an average of about 36,000. The "JAMA" study also looked at seasonal influenza-associated deaths over a 23-year period, from

title: Pandemic H1N1/09 virus
text: virus in the US. This is sometimes compared to the 36,000 people per year who die from the "common flu", mostly in winter, although this number is an estimate. The death rate of H1N1 in the US can be calculated as less than 0.02% from November 2009 figures from the CDC, and has been explicitly calculated as 0.026% in England. Existing vaccines against seasonal flu provide no protection. Vaccines were released in North America in late October. Production may be 3 billion doses per year rather than the earlier estimate of 5 billion. On May 22, 2009, World Health Organization

title: Spanish flu
text: died. Influenza may have killed as many as 25 million people in its first 25 weeks. Older estimates say it killed 40–50 million people, while current estimates say 50–100 million people worldwide were killed. This pandemic has been described as "the greatest medical holocaust in history" and may have killed more people than the Black Death. It is said that this flu killed more people in 24 weeks than AIDS killed in 24 years, and more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century, although the Black Death killed a much higher percentage of the world's smaller

title: 2009 flu pandemic timeline
text: Islands did not report." WHO At least 12,220 deaths globally are formally confirmed. (By contrast, the WHO estimates that the seasonal flu kills from 250,000 to 300,000 people around the world each year.) Overall, the activity of the H1N1 pandemic has peaked. WHO In Geneva Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the WHO, remarks in the context of the H5N1 bird flu virus that "The fact that the long overdue influenza pandemic is so moderate in its impact is probably the best health news of the decade" but that "No, the world is not ready for a pandemic to be caused

title: 2009 flu pandemic in the United States
text: vaccine was beginning to be widely distributed to the general public by several states. On December 23, 2009 the CDC reported a reduction of the disease by 59% percent and the disease was expected to end in the United States in January 2010. On January 15, 2010, the CDC released new estimate figures for swine flu, saying it has sickened about 55 million Americans and killed about 11,160 from April through mid-December. On February 12, 2010, the CDC released updated estimate figures for swine flu, reporting that, in total, 57 million Americans had been sickened, 257,000 had been hospitalised and

title: 2009 flu pandemic in the United States
text: much worse this is than seasonal flu. So far it's looking like it's not that serious. CNN stated on April 28, 2009 that there were at least 800 deaths in the U.S. due to normal influenza in each individual week between January 1 and April 18, which is higher than the combined worldwide death toll for the swine flu. As of November 19, 2009, the official death toll attributed directly to the novel H1N1 and seasonal influenza was 877. This total exceeds the 849 deaths directly attributed to seasonal influenza in 2006. Many of the other deaths commonly attributed to

title: 2009 flu pandemic in the United States
text: Toward the end of June 2009, the number of deaths related to the virus in the US surpassed those of all other countries as well. On June 25, the CDC released information revealing that there were more than likely over one million (1,000,000) cases of the disease in the US, most of which had not been reported or diagnosed. Deaths relating to this new strain of influenza began appearing in the US in late April, and by early June 15, states had reported fatalities related to or directly occurring from the virus. These deaths totaled at 4,000 as of November

title: Flu season
text: this number was actually lower in 2009. According to an article in "Clinical Infectious Diseases", published in 2011, the estimated health burden of 2009 Pandemic Influenza A (H1N1), between April 2009 to April 2010, was "approximately 60.8 million cases (range: 43.3–89.3 million), 274,304 hospitalizations (195,086–402,719), and 12,469 deaths (8,868–18,306)" "in the United States due to pH1N1." The 2012–13 flu season was particularly harsh in the United States, where the majority of states were reporting high rates of influenza-like illness. The Centers for Disease Control reported that the available flu vaccine was 60% effective. It further recommended that all persons over

title: 2009 flu pandemic
text: hundred times more lethal and had a case fatality rate of 2–3%. By 14 November 2009, the virus had infected one in six Americans with 200,000 hospitalisations and 10,000 deaths – as many hospitalizations and fewer deaths than in an average flu season overall, but with much higher risk for those under 50. With deaths of 1,100 children and 7,500 adults 18 to 64, these figures "are much higher than in a usual flu season". In June 2010, scientists from Hong Kong reported discovery of a new swine flu virus which is a hybrid of the pandemic H1N1 virus and

title: Influenza
text: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported a range from a low of about 3,300 deaths to a high of 49,000 per year. Roughly three times per century, a pandemic occurs, which infects a large proportion of the world's population and can kill tens of millions of people (see pandemics section). One study estimated that if a strain with similar virulence to the 1918 influenza emerged today, it could kill between 50 and 80 million people. New influenza viruses are constantly evolving by mutation or by reassortment. Mutations can cause small changes in the hemagglutinin and neuraminidase antigens on

title: 2009 flu pandemic
text: Finelli, a flu surveillance official with the CDC. Estimating deaths from influenza is also a complicated process. In 2005, influenza only appeared on the death certificates of 1,812 people in the US. The average annual US death toll from flu is, however, estimated to be 36,000. The CDC explains: "[I]nfluenza is infrequently listed on death certificates of people who die from flu-related complications" and hence, "Only counting deaths where influenza was included on a death certificate would be a gross underestimation of influenza's true impact". Influenza surveillance information on the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic is available, but almost no studies

title: Influenza pandemic
text: it mostly killed young adults, with 99% of pandemic influenza deaths occurring in people under 65, and more than half in young adults 20 to 40 years old. This is unusual since influenza is normally most deadly to the very young (under age 2) and the very old (over age 70). The total mortality of the 1918–1919 pandemic is not known, but it is estimated that up to 1% of the world's population was killed. As many as 25 million may have been killed in the first 25 weeks; in contrast, HIV/AIDS has killed 25 million in its first 25

title: Influenza A virus subtype H3N2
text: influenza kills an estimated 36,000 people in the United States each year. Flu vaccines are based on predicting which "mutants" of H1N1, H3N2, H1N2, and influenza B will proliferate in the next season. Separate vaccines are developed for the Northern and Southern Hemispheres in preparation for their annual epidemics. In the tropics, influenza shows no clear seasonality. In the past ten years, H3N2 has tended to dominate in prevalence over H1N1, H1N2, and influenza B. Measured resistance to the standard antiviral drugs amantadine and rimantadine in H3N2 has increased from 1% in 1994 to 12% in 2003 to 91% in

title: 2009 flu pandemic
text: 1976–77 and 1998–99. During that period, estimates of respiratory and circulatory influenza-associated deaths ranged from about 5,000 to about 52,000, with an average of about 25,000. While the 36,000 number is often cited, it's important to note that during that decade, influenza A (H3N2) was the predominant virus during most of the seasons, and H3N2 influenza viruses are typically associated with higher death rates. CDC believes that the range of deaths over the past 31 years (~3,000 to ~49,000) is a more accurate representation of the unpredictability and variability of flu-associated deaths. The annual toll from seasonal influenza in the

title: Yup'ik
text: the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus. It infected 500 million people across the world, including remote Pacific islands and the Arctic, and killed 50 to 100 million of them—three to five percent of the world's population—making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history. In the U.S., about 28% of the population suffered, and 500,000 to 675,000 died. Native American tribes were particularly hard hit. In the Four Corners area alone, 3,293 deaths were registered among Native Americans. Entire villages perished in Alaska. The influenza epidemic across the Seward Peninsula in 1918 and 1919 wiped out about

title: Influenza
text: another strain can cause a pandemic. Typically, in a year's normal two flu seasons (one per hemisphere), there are between three and five million cases of severe illness and around 500,000 deaths worldwide, which by some definitions is a yearly influenza epidemic. Although the incidence of influenza can vary widely between years, approximately 36,000 deaths and more than 200,000 hospitalizations are directly associated with influenza every year in the United States. One method of calculating influenza mortality produced an estimate of 41,400 average deaths per year in the United States between 1979 and 2001. Different methods in 2010 by the

title: 2009 flu pandemic in the United States
text: 15, 2009. The CDC distributed a vaccine for the novel flu strain. using mechanisms already in place for its Vaccines for Children (VFC) program. On October 24, 2009, President Barack Obama declared Swine Flu a national emergency in the United States. On November 12, 2009, the CDC reported an estimated 22 million Americans had been infected with 2009 A H1N1 and 4,000 Americans have died. On December 10, 2009, the CDC reported an estimated 50 million Americans or 1 in 6 people had been infected with the 2009 A H1N1 Virus and 10,000 American had died, by which time the

title: Spanish flu
text: an estimate, between 902,400 and 2,431,000, or 8.0% to 21.7% of the total population died. In the U.S., about 28% of the population became infected, and 500,000 to 675,000 died. Native American tribes were particularly hard hit. In the Four Corners area alone, 3,293 deaths were registered among Native Americans. Entire Inuit and Alaskan Native village communities died in Alaska. In Canada 50,000 died. In Brazil, 300,000 died, including president Rodrigues Alves. In Britain, as many as 250,000 died; in France, more than 400,000. In West Africa the influenza epidemic killed at least 100,000 people in Ghana. Tafari Makonnen (the

title: Bioterrorism
text: York Times" report, the Gates Foundation predicted that a modern outbreak similar to the Spanish Influenza pandemic (which killed between 50 million and 100 million people) could end up killing more than 360 million people worldwide, even considering widespread availability of vaccines and other healthcare tools. The report cited increased globalization, rapid international air travel, and urbanization as increased reasons for concern. In a March 9, 2017 interview with CNBC, former U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, who was co-chair of the bipartisan Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense, said a worldwide pandemic could end the lives of more people than a

title: 2017–18 United States flu season
text: that year hadn't "changed enough from previous seasons to be considered a novel strain." In the first week of February, deaths from influenza and pneumonia were responsible for one of every ten deaths in the US, with 4,064 from pneumonia or influenza recorded in the third week of 2018, according to CDC data. The CDC also reported 63 child deaths at that point, half of which were not considered medically high risk, and only about 20 percent who were vaccinated. Only two of those deaths were babies under six months old. On February 9, 2018, the CDC announced that the