If you call the downward trend "significant", how would you call the upward trend of flu shots given each year then?
> In other words, adjusting for age effects, influenza mortality risk significantly decreased by an average of 2.02 % per year between 1959 and 2016
Also, what would happen if we would normalize for better treatments, better vaccines available with each passing year? Or that shouldn't be taken into consideration?
> how would you call the upward trend of flu shots given each year then?
I guess I'd say that's significant as well? I don't need to analyze the numbers in much depth to see that there's an upward trend in people getting flu shots over the last few decades...
> Also, what would happen if we would normalize for better treatments, better vaccines available with each passing year? Or that shouldn't be taken into consideration?
Not sure what you are getting at here. Your original comment said "There is absolutely no relationship between the number of flu “vaccines” given and deaths from influenza." By the very sources that you gave, it's pretty clear that there is a significant correlation between the percentage of the population getting flu vaccines vs the rates of influenza mortality. In the time period you describe, the rate (which takes into account populationsize) of influenza deaths went down by almost half.
Now sure, correlation isn't causation, so it's entirely possible that there's some other factor leading to drops in flu deaths. Which is why the CDC has a pretty comprehensive page about how they determine the effectiveness of the flu vaccine [1] where they discuss methodologies, including shortcomings.
You have a minuscule reduction in deaths over a massive increase of flu shots, percentage wise. Is the whole downward trend attributable to the flu shots? Certainly not unless you think that the better overall care over the years other than vaccines, improved knowledge of the disease was neutral at best. We could remove the flu shots entirely and it won't make much of a difference in the end result with regard to flu deaths.
> In other words, adjusting for age effects, influenza mortality risk significantly decreased by an average of 2.02 % per year between 1959 and 2016
Also, what would happen if we would normalize for better treatments, better vaccines available with each passing year? Or that shouldn't be taken into consideration?