Table of Contents
Introduction
Facebook has flagged a meme claiming that the fatality rate for COVID-19 in the US is 0.017 percent as “False” and directs users of the social media platform to a “Fact Check” article from Lead Stories published on May 21 that describes the meme as a “hoax”. The author of the article, Gita Smith, asserts that the true mortality rate is much higher, at an estimated 1.3 percent.[1]
The purpose of the meme was to suggest that the extreme lockdown measures that have been implemented by governments around the world, including most US states, are the result of “panic”, and that people might perceive the risk differently if represented in terms of the survival rate rather than the death rate. The meme presented numbers for a variety of countries, starting with a claimed survival rate for the US of “99.983%”.
The purpose of the Lead Stories article, by contrast, is to advocate the lockdown measures as being necessary to prevent an enormous number of deaths due to SARS-CoV-2 supposedly having a death rate more than ten times that of the flu.
So, the question at the heart of this controversy is whether the extreme measures are warranted or instead represent a mass panic and political overreaction that could easily be doing more harm than good.
The “Fact Check” article is correct to say that the fatality rate presented in the meme is not supported by the currently available data. However, far from presenting the public with the truth, Lead Stories itself grossly deceives its readers with numerous assertions that range from misleading to outright false. On a few counts, Lead Stories demonstrably lies, fabricating claims by misrepresenting its own cited sources.
A critical examination of the claims made by Lead Stories reveals that, if we objectively apply its own standard, the “Fact Check” article is certainly no less of a hoax than the meme. It is nothing more than political propaganda intended to serve the function of manufacturing consent for extreme authoritarian government policies that could easily be doing far more harm than good.
The Crux of the Deception
In the lead paragraph of the Lead Stories article, Smith argues that if the meme’s fatality rate of 0.017 percent were true, given 1,610,000 “confirmed” COVID-19 cases in the US as of May 21, “the death toll would be about 27,370”; but instead there are “at least 95,000 confirmed deaths from COVID-19”. The implication is that therefore the claimed rate must be wrong.
Actually, a fatality rate of 0.017 percent, given 1,610,000 cases, would mean just 274 deaths. Smith neglected to move the decimal place in her calculation (0.017 divided by 100 to convert the percent to a decimal). The proper calculation, of course, makes the meme’s claimed rate appear even more hugely understated, given the logic of her argument, so this was obviously an honest mistake that worked in the meme’s favor.
Curiously, though, Smith did not do the math to directly compare the meme’s claimed fatality rate with the rate we get by dividing 95,000 into 1,610,000, which is an alarming 5.9 percent.
This, too, would obviously have made the meme’s rate seem even more outrageously understated. Instead, though, she cites an estimate from a University of Washington study that puts what she describes as the “mortality rate” at 1.3 percent.
She offers no explanation for why that number differs so greatly from the much higher one that her own reasoning demands we use for comparison.
There is an explanation, which we’ll come to, but first there are some other immediate problems with Smith’s argument that require our attention.
Author writes “If things were to go on as he suggests, we’d have to see about 10,269 deaths for the week ending May 23. Yet the CDC reports just 1,688 deaths that week. This will likely increase some as additional data comes in, but it’s improbable that it will increase by 84 percent.” Am I the only person baffled by that arithmetic? Doesn’t an increase of 1.688 by 84% = 1.688 x 1.84 = 3,106 rather than 10.269?
I think I see what Author has done, but is that a widely understood use of 84% increase?
Author has apparently arrived at 84% thusly: (10269=1688)/10269. Perhaps Author will comment.
Franklin, the reason you’re confused is because my number was wrong. It’s a 508% increase. My error. I’ve corrected it with an explanatory note at the foot. (I’d divided by the final number rather than the starting number. Whoops!) It should have been obvious as I wrote that that it could not be just an 84% increase, but I just didn’t pick up on my miscalculation. Thank you for pointing it out.
Astounding, bulletproof analysis, as always. How can we get everyone in world to read this? How can we get Jeremy to crunch every controversial subject? Jeremy for president!!
Thanks, Neal! My son once asked me, “What’s an election?” I told him, “It’s when people vote for who they want to be the president.” He said, “I think you should be the president.” I said, “That’s not the kind of job I’d like to have.” He said, “But you could tell everybody what to do!” I replied, “I’m not the kind of person who would want to tell everybody what to do.” So then he said, “But you could tell everybody that they’re free!” LOL! That’s my boy.
“And so when she presents “1.3 percent” as the “mortality rate of COVID-19 cases”, readers would have to be forgiven for interpreting this to mean that for every 130 people who become infected with the virus, one will die.” Shouldn’t this be “…for every 77 people…”? 1/77 = .013 or so.
Bill, thanks for pointing out this error. I have corrected it.
My pleasure! Keep up the great work!
Great analysis. I can understand the amount of research and writing that went into this.
Thanks, Frank.