The controversial Ethiopian politician and Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, claimed in a press conference in early March that the fatality rate for the coronavirus was many multiples that of the fatality rate of the common flu.
This egregiously false premise has led to the greatest panic in world history.
The Director General of the WHO spoke on March 3, 2020 and shared this related to the coronavirus:
While many people globally have built up immunity to seasonal flu strains, COVID-19 is a new virus to which no one has immunity. That means more people are susceptible to infection, and some will suffer severe disease.
Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died. By comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1% of those infected.
This statement led to the greatest panic in world history as the media all over the world shared and repeated that the coronavirus was many, many times more deadly than the common flu.
The problem is his statement is false. It was not accurate!
The Gateway Pundit reported yesterday, that the coronavirus fatality rate reported by the media was completely inaccurate and the actual rate is less than the current seasonal flu – the media was lying again. The false reporting of the coronavirus fatality rate of 3.4% in the media started with the statements made by the WHO in early March.
Here’s a summary of the analysis from yesterday proving the Director General’s statement was very misleading and materially false:
1. The fatality rate of the coronavirus was based on current data available of known positive cases and known deaths.
Oftentimes estimates have to be made because data is just not yet available. The Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, used the fatality rate of coronavirus with known numbers and used this as his prediction of eventual mortality rate. This was a faulty assumption. Estimates usually involve obtaining information that is available and making estimates on what is not. We cannot tell the future but we can make educated guesses based on information available. This is what has been done with the coronavirus because this type of virus has apparently never been seen before.
Continue at The Gateway Pundit…
A look at the numbers:
- Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus used the actual number of deaths due to coronavirus divided by confirmed cases to get his 3.4% mortality rate number (from last week -since that time the mortality rate based on current reported numbers is near 4%)
- Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus then compared the actual coronavirus mortality rate to an estimated flu mortality rate of 0.1% — The US flu mortality rate is based on an estimated 22,000 deaths divided by an estimated 36 million flu cases giving a 0.1% mortality rate.
- Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus compared known numbers for coronavirus (3.4 percent mortality rate) but did not include the estimated number of those infected who are asymtomatic. This number is likely in the tens of thousands and could be in the millions! There is no way of knowing right now. One study released this week revealed that 6 of 7 people infected by coronavirus are asymptomatic! They do not know they are infected!
- Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus then compared the known numbers of 206,845 cases of coronavirus to the millions of estimated annual cases of flu cases. Again he does not include the asymtomatic cases, the 6 of 7 people infected who do not suffer severe symptoms.
- If asymtomatic cases are included in Ghebreyesus’s calculation the actual mortality rate of the coronavirus is somewhere between 0.2% to 0.8% or lower.
As of the morning of 3/18/2020 there were 7,301 confirmed cases in the US.
There were 116 confirmed deaths associated with the coronavirus in the US.
The mortality rate for those two sets of numbers is 1.6%.
We also know that according to a new study by the journal Science — 6 of 7 coronavirus victims, or 86% of infections, were undocumented. If latest study published in the Science journal is correct then the coronavirus scare will be the greatest hoax in world history causing trillions and trillions of dollars in economic damage. The WHO and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus need to be held responsible!