How Deadly Is COVID-19?

For months, since the world began to focus on the virus from Wuhan, China, the numbers of cases and deaths have been hidden. Available numbers have been manipulated and rightly doubted. In addition to the unreliability of the data, people have shown a remarkable lack of understanding when it comes to interpreting the available data.

Assertions are made about the virus that are based on incomplete data.

As a result, we have an obsession with toilet paper. We're on the verge of passing an absolutely massive and, in some ways, stunningly irresponsible stimulus bill.

It's amazing what's happened in the last few weeks. Decisions that may make the difference between life and death are being made. Numbers are being used to verify a reality that may not be real at all.

From Standford, FSI News:

Stanford Health Policy's Eran Bendavid and Jay Bhattacharya write in this Wall Street Journal editorial that current estimates about the COVID-19 fatality rate may be too high by orders of magnitude.

"If it’s true that the novel coronavirus would kill millions without shelter-in-place orders and quarantines, then the extraordinary measures being carried out in cities and states around the country are surely justified. But there’s little evidence to confirm that premise—and projections of the death toll could plausibly be orders of magnitude too high.

"Fear of Covid-19 is based on its high estimated case fatality rate — 2% to 4% of people with confirmed Covid-19 have died, according to the World Health Organization and others. So if 100 million Americans ultimately get the disease, 2 million to 4 million could die. We believe that estimate is deeply flawed. The true fatality rate is the portion of those infected who die, not the deaths from identified positive cases."

"The latter rate is misleading because of selection bias in testing. The degree of bias is uncertain because available data are limited. But it could make the difference between an epidemic that kills 20,000 and one that kills 2 million. If the number of actual infections is much larger than the number of cases—orders of magnitude larger—then the true fatality rate is much lower as well. That’s not only plausible but likely based on what we know so far."

We have so much to learn about COVID-19.

Follow the numbers, but beware.

What they reveal at this point may be very leading.