*FACTS*
Current reported mortality rate for seasonal flu (US): 0️⃣.1️⃣%
Current reported mortality rate for Coronavirus (US): 4️⃣.0️⃣%
Coronavirus mortality rate (US) is 4️⃣0️⃣ times higher than seasonal flu (US)
*PEOPLE TO LISTEN TO*
❌ Trump
✅ Federal and State Health Officials
Current reported mortality rate for seasonal flu (US): 0️⃣.1️⃣%
Current reported mortality rate for Coronavirus (US): 4️⃣.0️⃣%
Coronavirus mortality rate (US) is 4️⃣0️⃣ times higher than seasonal flu (US)
*PEOPLE TO LISTEN TO*
❌ Trump
✅ Federal and State Health Officials
PS/ Eight weeks from now (apparently) America will be prepared to fully test people for Coronavirus, so between now and then (and after) the mortality rate reported is likely to fall. But you don't *guess* at data during a pandemic. The tweet above reflects the data we have now.
PS2/ This thread doesn't draw any *final* conclusions on mortality rate. It reflects the information we have right now. And it's in the midst of this current information landscape that the president is falsely implying the Coronavirus is much *less* serious than the seasonal flu.
PS3/ The hope is that the final mortality rate will fall between .4% and 1%. Because of how contagious Coronavirus is, experts say up to 70% of Americans will get it. If that occurs, we're looking at between 896,000 and 2.24 million US deaths. Seasonal flu: under 70,000 annually.
PS4/ So in terms of total deaths, if the current data we have, optimistic as it is with respect to final mortality rate, is accurate, Coronavirus will kill somewhere between 13 and 8,960 times more people than a single year of seasonal flu. And Trump says seasonal flu is *worse*.
PS5/ As I wrote in the first tweet in this thread, your chief source of info on Coronavirus should be federal and state health officials. They'll tell you, as I do here, that we're not doing anything like the amount of testing we should and that mortality data will slowly change.
PS6/ They'll also tell you we can't guess at exactly what additional testing will do to the mortality rate besides lower it. But they'll say this much—no amount of lowering of the rate that's likely to happen will make Coronavirus anything but *far more deadly* than seasonal flu.
MORE/ From an NPR Science Editor:
PS7/ As an indication of how important it is to work from the data we have and *not make guesses* on whether they'll improve or worsen, Italy is doing testing, has 9,000 confirmed cases, and has a mortality rate of 5.14%. So no one should make projections beyond the data we have.
