General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: 10:47 am....trump sent out a tweet downplaying the coronavirus...twitter should shut him down [View all]Mersky
(4,969 posts)Is why public education, competent governance, and faithful leadership is so important. tRumps tweet is like the hucksterism that lands people with poor oil and gas lease terms when they are lead to think that a 1/16 share is worth more than 1/4. He was likely given sheets of numbers and statistics then knowingly cobbled this together to sell a fraud of life and death consequences to the general public. Certainly, some of his underlings know the truth, and shame on them for letting the pResident present these figures in this way.
From his stated numbers, 22 deaths for 546 confirmed cases is a 4.0% death rate. If this coronovirus was the common flu with a 0.1% death rate*, then only half of one person (.546) would be dead at this point.
22 Coronavirus deaths vs .5 flu deaths - thats the real comparison that the pResident of the United States should care about.
Twitter should pull his tweet.
Now, all this said, it is hopefully early in its spread and with more/better testing the 4% death rate should fall some. The pResident hiding the truth isnt helping the public understand how to handle this disease.
*Retrieved this rate from Wikipedia (3/9/20 @ 12:32 pm CT), as tRumps numbers do not reflect the reality hes intentionally withholding. Need to note that I rounded down and kept it at half a person, to make the relative magnitude more relatable - still more accurate than what the pResident is suggesting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_disease_case_fatality_rates