One of the biggest questions during the Coronavirus pandemic is what is the true mortality rate? When COVID-19 was first being tracked many saw a death rate around 3 percent or even higher. We have seen death rates in Italy and Spain of 5 percent or more at times. Yet, other people have said the death rate is 1 percent or even less. How do we know what the real fatality rate is?
At the beginning of the pandemic, it looked like the Novel Coronavirus had an extremely high death rate of 3 percent or more. The death rate was calculated by dividing the confined cases by the deaths, a very simple formula. The first Imperial College study used this rate to predict millions would die. However, a problem with this calculation was discovered by a few scientists. There may be many more cases than what is being counted. Some studies, including a second Imperial College study, say there may be millions of cases more than what the tests show. If there are millions more cases not being counted, that means the mortality rate is much lower than what was first thought. The death rate could be less than 1 percent.
Why was the published death rate so high in the beginning?
The World Health Organization or WHO originally said the death rate of the coronavirus was 3.4%. They got this rate from comparing how many confirmed cases there were with how many deaths there were. Most of their data came from China because they had the most data and the most cases.
Another study came out in March that said the same thing, 3% would die. That study, from Imperial College, also stated that more than 2 million people would die in the US alone if nothing was done. That study was not peer-reviewed, which means no other colleges or experts double-checked and approved their work. This would make the virus about 300 times more lethal than the common flu. 1 out of 30 people who contract it would die instead of about 1 out of 1,000 who die from the flu.
Did every doctor and scientist agree?
One myth that keeps being repeated is that every doctor and scientist agrees that businesses had to be shut down because the death rate is so high.
“These actions have to be taken to save millions of lives!”
There were some scientists who believed this but not all. There were a number of people who thought major errors were being made and many people were overreacting.
The reason they thought the numbers and death rates were wrong was that not enough testing was being done. The studies were assuming that all the cases were being counted, but other studies were showing that many people had very minor symptoms when they got COVID-19 or no symptoms at all. If many more people had the virus than was first thought it would make the death rate much lower.
Who were these people?
Dr. Ioannidis from Stanford
Dr. Ioannidis is the C.F. Rehnborg Chair in Disease Prevention, Professor of Medicine, of Epidemiology and Population Health, and (by courtesy) of Biomedical Data Science, and of Statistics; co-Director, Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford (METRICS).
From a very early stage, he was saying the Imperial College study was wrong and that it was making too many assumptions without enough information.
Oxford University Study
An Oxford University study stated that as many as 50% of the population of the United Kingdon may already have had the coronavirus in Mid March.
Hong Kong University and Hardvard
This study said that the death rate was much lower than the 3.4% pushed by the World Health Organization in March.
These doctors and scientists believed that the cases of COVID-19 were being underestimated. They did not feel that millions would die. They did not think it was a hoax or a political conspiracy, but they thought some experts were making rash decisions based on the wrong data.
Why did these scientists believe cases were underreported?
As the virus has progressed and more has been learned about it we have come to realize a few things:
- Many people have the virus but show no symptoms
- Many people have the virus but show very minor symptoms
- Not everyone who shows symptoms, even severe symptoms is being tested.
Even in March many of these scientists were raising these concerns, but few people were listening to them. They mentioned a few situations like mass testing in Iceland that showed 1% of the population had the virus and most had no idea or symptoms. They mentioned the Princesses Cruise Ship that showed 50% of the passengers that tested positive had no symptoms at all and the death rate in an older population was .6%. They mentioned the testing of people who fled Wuhan and the extremely high rates of infection of seemingly healthy people. They mentioned the death rate in South Korea of .6% where more testing was being done.
Iceland now has 9 deaths and 1,773 confirmed cases, which is .5% death rate. But remember, even Iceland has not tested everyone! Their death rate is most likely even lower.
There was data showing the virus was not as serious as first feared but most ignored it. The media, governments, the public, went with the study that made headlines and was the scariest. The Imperial College Study.
What do the new studies show the death rate is?
The Imperial College conducted a new study on March 30th, that was meant to show social distancing was working. However, they made some very interesting assumptions that completely undermined their first study that was so dire and predicted millions would die.
The new Imperial College study assumed that 7 to 43 million people already had the coronavirus in 11 countries in Europe. In Spain, where the virus was raging at the time, they assumed 7 million people had the virus and 8,000 had died at the time. That would have made the death rate .11 percent, or almost exactly the same as the flu.
This study was not mentioned much, except for the fact it “proved” proved social distancing was working. I think many people missed the more important data of what a more realistic death rate is. This was not the only study that has shown these numbers.
Another study from Stanford was recently done that showed many more people have the disease than was first thought after a group of people were tested in Santa Clara County in California. That study shows that as many as 80 times more cases than what the test show.
Right now there are 767,000 cases in the United States with 40,000 deaths, which would show a 5% death rate! However, we know that not everyone who has the virus is being tested. If we multiply the case number by 80 that would mean 61 million people have it in the United States, which makes the death rate .07% or less than the flu! Stanford also said there could only be 40 times as many people with the virus and that would make the death rate .13% or a little higher than the flu.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_Z9AC9-oyg&lc=Ugz_pMnGWLkWD_Gd9px4AaABAg.97bT0A2KG_397dwdsuitX8
A homeless shelter in Massachusets had all the residents tested recently and 146 of the 397 people tested positive, but only a few showed symptoms!
Another study by USC shows the same thing. “Based on the results of the first round of testing, the research team estimates that approximately 4.1% of the county’s adult population has an antibody to the virus. Adjusting this estimate for the statistical margin of error implies about 2.8% to 5.6% of the county’s adult population has an antibody to the virus — which translates to approximately 221,000 to 442,000 adults in the county who have been infected. That estimate is 28 to 55 times higher than the 7,994 confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported to the county at the time of the study in early April. The number of COVID-related deaths in the county has now surpassed 600.” That death rate is .13% to .27%, or slightly higher than the flu.
Conclusion
What can we learn from all of these studies? I believe the actual death rate based on the studies is very close to the flu. We see actual real-life data showing a death rate around .1% or 1 out of 1,000 who get the virus will die. We also know that 90 percent of those who die from the virus are very old or have underlying health conditions. Everyone wants to save lives, but we must consider if shutting down businesses is the right decision since 25 million Americans will lose their jobs in April alone. If that many people will be forced to stop working, we must at least use accurate data to make those decisions. I believe these are the numbers that Sweden looked at when they decided not to shut down. Their county is not overwhelmed with deaths or cases. Sweden has about 1,500 deaths so far but has a much smaller population than the United States. If we look at Sweden from a relative standpoint, they have lost about 155 people per million, while the United States has lost about 123 people per million.