Welcome, Guest: Register On Nairaland / LOGIN! / Trending / Recent / New
Stats: 3,163,099 members, 7,852,731 topics. Date: Friday, 07 June 2024 at 03:21 AM

How A Simple But Fatal Math Mistake By US Experts Caused The World To Panic - Health - Nairaland

Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Health / How A Simple But Fatal Math Mistake By US Experts Caused The World To Panic (145 Views)

Don’t Make The Mistake I Made / US Experts Bash EU Decision To Pause Astrazeneca Vaccine; Texas, 'OPEN 100%,' Ha / Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine:Margaret Keenan Is 1st In world To Get It (2) (3) (4)

(1) (Reply)

How A Simple But Fatal Math Mistake By US Experts Caused The World To Panic by astragreen: 8:42am On Sep 08, 2020
In February, US Covid guru Anthony Fauci predicted the virus was ‘akin to a severe flu’ and would therefore kill around 0.1 percent of people. Then fatality rate predictions were somehow mixed up to make it look ten times WORSE.
When you strip everything else out, the reason for lockdown comes from a single figure: one percent. This was the prediction that Covid, if left unchecked, would kill around one percent of us.

You may not think that percentage is enormous, but one percent of the population of the world is 70 million people – and that’s a lot. It would mean 3.2 million Americans dead, and 670,000 Britons.

But where did this one percent figure come from? You may find this hard to believe, but this figure emerged by mistake. A pretty major thing to make a mistake about, but that’s what happened.
First, there’s the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR). This is the total number of people who are infected by a disease and the number of them who die. This figure includes those who have no symptoms at all, or only very mild symptoms – those who stayed at home, coughed a bit and watched Outbreak.

Then there’s the Case Fatality Rate (CFR). This is the number of people suffering serious symptoms, who are probably ill enough to be in hospital. Clearly, people who are seriously ill – the “cases” – are going to have a higher mortality rate than those who are infected, many of whom don’t have symptoms. Put simply – all cases are infections, but not all infections are cases.

Which means that the CFR will always be far higher than the IFR. With influenza, the CFR is around ten times as high as the IFR. Covid seems to have a similar proportion.

Now, clearly, you do not want to get these figures mixed up. By doing so you would either wildly overestimate, or wildly underestimate, the impact of Covid. But mix these figures up, they did.

The error started in America, but didn’t end there. In healthcare, the US is very much the dog that wags the tail. The figures they come up with are used globally.

On February 28, 2020, an editorial was released by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the editorial stated: “… the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza.”
They added that influenza has a CFR of approximately 0.1 percent. One person in a thousand who gets it badly, dies.

But that quoted CFR for influenza was ten times too low – they meant to say the IFR, the Infection Fatality Rate, for influenza was 0.1 percent. This was their fatal – quite literally – mistake.

The mistake was compounded. On March 11, the same experts testified to Congress, stating that Covid’s CFR was likely to be about one percent, so one person dying from a hundred who fell seriously ill. Which, as time has passed, has proved to be pretty accurate.

At this meeting, they compared the likely impact of Covid to flu. But they used the wrong CFR for influenza, the one stated in the previous NEJM editorial. 0.1 percent, or one in a thousand. The one that was ten times too low.

Flu toll 1,000 – Covid toll 10,000
So, they matched up the one percent CFR of Covid with the incorrect 0.1 percent CFR of flu. Suddenly, Covid was going to be ten times as deadly.

(1) (Reply)

Dr. Ugboaja Speaks On Mass Exodus Of Doctors To Other Countries / Reasons Why We Should Take A Warm Water Bath / NAFDAC Moves To Ban Sales, Packaging Of Alcoholic Drinks In Sachets

(Go Up)

Sections: politics (1) business autos (1) jobs (1) career education (1) romance computers phones travel sports fashion health
religion celebs tv-movies music-radio literature webmasters programming techmarket

Links: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)

Nairaland - Copyright © 2005 - 2024 Oluwaseun Osewa. All rights reserved. See How To Advertise. 11
Disclaimer: Every Nairaland member is solely responsible for anything that he/she posts or uploads on Nairaland.