Study challenges reports of low fatality rate for COVID-19

[Igel]

22. That's precisely the issue.

The flu stats we pretty much accept.

But to say COVID is 50x worse that the flu you have to know how dangerous COVID is--and we don't. We used to say that 3.4% of those infected get it. Fauci went on record over a month ago saying that he thought that the number would come in under 1%. Some estimates put it at .9, .8, .7., all the way down to 0.2%.

Now, 0.2% is both only 2-4x as bad as the flu in an average season. At the same time, it's not the risk per person but the fact that far more people could be infected and suffer that matters, because that would be a lot more deaths than from the flu. (But here people start going off the rails, because having based the letahlity of the virus on average flu deaths they switch over and use a really bad flu season for comparison--in other words, they use one number calculation that 2-4x and later replace that number quietly to make a point that the numbers themselves probably don't support.)