The irresponsible, biased, and scaremonger mainstream media has been dishonestly and grossly overstating the death rate of COVID-19 in order to try to justify totalitarian lockdowns and economic destruction. Here are examples of doctors and scientists showing that the real COVID-19 death rate is far, far lower than what the mainstream media has been saying.

By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)

April 23, 2020

On March 30, 2020, I wrote:

It’s possible that the number of people in the U.S. who are infected with COVID-19 is much bigger than the number that is being currently reported, but many of those people haven’t gotten substantially sick, and so haven’t gotten tested.

The death rate is calculated by dividing the number of people who die by the number who get infected.

But while we do have accurate information about the numerator, we really have no idea what the denominator is. It’s possible that the real denominator is magnitudes bigger than what is being reported, because most infected people have either no symptoms or minor symptoms, and thus, don’t get tested. If this is indeed the case, then it’s possible that the real death rate is far, far lower than the one that is being reported.

It turns out that I was right.

The irresponsible, biased, and scaremonger mainstream media has been dishonestly and grossly overstating the death rate of COVID-19 in order to try to justify totalitarian lockdowns and economic destruction.

Here are examples of doctors and scientists showing that the real COVID-19 death rate is far, far lower than what the mainstream media has been saying.

March 26, 2020: “Stanford medical professors: COVID-19 death toll estimates may be ‘orders of magnitude’ too high”: https://www.theblaze.com/news/stanford_coronavirus_too_high_death

March 26, 2020: New England Journal of Medicine: “the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%)”: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2002387?fbclid=IwAR3psHRYCZL1uIMKU2cJuSrpcc7SCs7kAIjjfDCmXqG_bOjcWd2Li-xXZHs

April 8, 2020: From a medical paper: “The COVID-19 death risk in people <65 years old during the period of fatalities from the epidemic was equivalent to the death risk from driving between 9 miles per day (Germany) and 415 miles per day (New York City)”: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.05.20054361v1

April 11, 2020: The Economist: “Covid-19 takes 20-25 days to kill victims. The paper reckons that 7m Americans were infected from March 8th to 14th, and official data show 7,000 deaths three weeks later. The resulting fatality rate is 0.1%, similar to that of flu.”: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/04/11/why-a-study-showing-that-covid-19-is-everywhere-is-good-news

April 18, 2020: Stanford University researchers: “Between 50 and 85 times as many people in Santa Clara County have coronavirus antibodies as have tested positive for the virus.”:  https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-antibodies-widespread-in-santa-clara.html

April 20, 2020: Los Angeles County: “Based on the first round of testing, the research team estimated that roughly 4.1% of the county’s adult population has developed antibodies to the virus — an indication they are or were infected at some point. Adjusting for the statistical margin of error implies that approximately 221,000 to 442,000 adults in the county have had the infection. That estimate is 28 to 55 times higher than the 7,994 confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported to the county by the time of the study in early April.”: https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/early-antibody-testing-indicates-far-more-covid-19-cases-lower-mortality-rate/2349275/

April 20, 2020: Los Angeles County: “the study suggests that 0.1 percent to 0.2 percent of people infected by the virus will die, which would make COVID-19 only somewhat more deadly than the seasonal flu”: https://reason.com/2020/04/20/l-a-county-antibody-tests-suggest-the-fatality-rate-for-covid-19-is-much-lower-than-people-feared/