Thread by @kurteichenwald

1. @PressSec: How do we combat stupid falsehoods about an epidemic from @POTUS, the dumbest man in the world?

By Trump's ridiculous abuse of data, leading him to say coronavirus is not a big deal, then kids with polio should go to school, cause the infection is no big deal...

2...in fact, using #DimwitDon's stupid, ignorant, uninformed, and destructive use of data on @seanhannity , the following diseases are LESS serious than coronavirus:
1. Measles.
2. Polio
3. Viral and Bacterial Meningitis
4. Tuberculosis

I could keep going. The reason why...

3....is the vast majority of MOST viral infections do present as serious in a majority of the people infected. Take polio: 99% of the people infected present with what's called non-paralytic or abortive polio. The symptoms are mild. 1% present with paralytic polio. The issue...

4...is NOT the percentage those that are mild. The issue is applying those percentages to the number infected. So if 10 million people get polio, 100,000 of them get paralytic polio. Almost all of those are paralyzed. Of that group, about 5% die. Which is why 6,000 kids died...

5...in the polio epidemic of 1916 in the United States.

There are viral infections that, before the development of treatments or vaccines, are almost all fatal. AIDS in the 1980s had close to 100% fatality rate. With prevention that can hold HIV from exploding into AIDS as....

6...well as treatments for AIDS, huge percentages don't develop further than HIV infections and rate of death from AIDS is far less than it was.

Let's apply this to the rates of COVID-19. The first study - just published - from China experience found that...

7...the infection presents majority of time in a mild form. That number, 80%, means 8 out of 10 people will have mild infection. 20% present serious or critical. Look at the numbers compared to polio! The percentage of serious cases of polio is 1/20th of those with COVID-19...

8...can you imagine Truman proclaiming based on the percentages, "Polio is no big deal. Most people get better in a few weeks. So, if you get it, go to work. Send your kids to school." *Truman would've been sent to an insane asylum!* Why, @PressSec is @POTUS not in an asylum?...

9...which goes to the second issue: @POTUS says that the @WHO is spreading fake news because his ever-present "people" say they are wrong, and he has a "hunch" is is less than 1%. #DimwitDon is too stupid to know that death rates are based on DATA, not "people" or "hunches"...

10...the current data shows that the death rate is just over 3.4%. (See today's data attached.) That number is not fixed, of course. It could go lower or, if availability of medical support gets flooded, it could go higher. Data from China as of Feb 11 showed a 2.5% death rate...

11...was that limited to China? Is it a fluke of cohort of infection? Has the virus become more virulent? Or is the aggregate data indicative that circumstances outside of China are somehow different? OR, has the rate in China changed since 2/11? I don't know, but what we....

12...DO know is that if 1,000,000 people get infected, based on our current data, 20,000-30,000 will die. 1% is simply a made-up number.

Now, given that only Cult45 is brainwashed enough to believe Trump, why am I saying all of this? It's important because....

13...they can kill tens of thousands of people. If they start showing up to work, they WILL infect healthy people. They WILL infect you. They WILL cause this epidemic to explode. Extremely contagious diseases do not just stay with the stupid. Stupid people touch things that you..

14...do. Use this information to try & cut through the brainwashing. And if it doesn't work, go to your boss so you can have them force anyone showing symptoms to either go home or be fired. Trumpism is a fatal infection. Combat these people. Protect yourself as best you can. fin