what percentage is considered an epidemic
In terms of the flu, the difference between an outbreak and an epidemic is the percenatge of overall deaths caused by the disease.Every week, the CDC gathers morbidity data from hospitals in 122 cities nationwide and figures out what percentage of the decedents died of pneumonia, cancer, and other prolific killers.f the number of flu-caused deaths exceeds 7.7 percent of the total, then the United States officially has an epidemic on its hands. According to the latest survey, only 7.2 percent of last week's deaths were due to influenza, so there's no epidemic yet. Advertisement.