The CDC's New 'Best Estimate' Implies a COVID-19 Infection Fatality Rate Below 0.3%

[mystery-ak]

The CDC's New 'Best Estimate' Implies a COVID-19 Infection Fatality Rate Below 0.3%

That rate is much lower than the numbers used in the horrifying projections that shaped the government response to the epidemic.

Jacob Sullum | 5.24.2020 5:35 PM

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the current "best estimate" for the fatality rate among Americans with COVID-19 symptoms is 0.4 percent. The CDC also estimates that 35 percent of people infected by the COVID-19 virus never develop symptoms. Those numbers imply that the virus kills less than 0.3 percent of people infected by it—far lower than the infection fatality rates (IFRs) assumed by the alarming projections that drove the initial government response to the epidemic, including broad business closure and stay-at-home orders.

The CDC offers the new estimates in its "COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios," which are meant to guide hospital administrators in "assessing resource needs" and help policy makers "evaluate the potential effects of different community mitigation strategies." It says "the planning scenarios are being used by mathematical modelers throughout the Federal government."

The CDC's five scenarios include one based on "a current best estimate about viral transmission and disease severity in the United States." That scenario assumes a "basic reproduction number" of 2.5, meaning the average carrier can be expected to infect that number of people in a population with no immunity. It assumes an overall symptomatic case fatality rate (CFR) of 0.4 percent, roughly four times the estimated CFR for the seasonal flu. The CDC estimates that the CFR for COVID-19 falls to 0.05 percent among people younger than 50 and rises to 1.3 percent among people 65 and older. For people in the middle (ages 50–64), the estimated CFR is 0.2 percent.

more
https://reason.com/2020/05/24/the-cdcs-new-best-estimate-implies-a-covid-19-infection-fatality-rate-below-0-3/

[Hoodat]

Forty million Americans put out of work for a disease with a 0.24% fatality rate caused by a virus that can't survive in sunlight and humid air.

[catfish1957]

Forty million Americans put out of work for a disease with a 0.24% fatality rate caused by a virus that can't survive in sunlight and humid air.

Best election year scam in human history.  Big question now, is between now and November will Joe Q. Voter realize this.

Yep, terrible disease, but best dealt with by isolating the at risk population, and let the rest of the country get back to normal

[Idiot]

Best election year scam in human history.  Big question now, is between now and November will Joe Q. Voter realize this.

Yep, terrible disease, but best dealt with by isolating the at risk population, and let the rest of the country get back to normal

Early on it was hard to call this an election scam, since just about every other country on earth was locking down like we did.  After the first few weeks passed though, yup.....it's a scam now.

[skeeter]

Early on it was hard to call this an election scam, since just about every other country on earth was locking down like we did.  After the first few weeks passed though, yup.....it's a scam now.

Its become just another endless government program.