Dear Reader:

What follows, including quotes, is taken from  www. worldometers. If you click there on “death” the following information will be available fto you (in a different form and order, and hopefully my presentation of it is accurate enough for the purpose here):

Case Fatality Rate (CFR) aka death rate aka mortality rate of a viral disease is the number of people who die because of he virus divided by the number of people who were infected by the virus. In other words: the total number of cases of death divided by the total number of cases of infection  (multiplied by 100 so to arrive to a percentage).

For a comparison, here are the mortality rates of the following viral diseases: the seasonal flu- way less than 1%, swine flu- 0.02%, the 2002-03 SARS- 10%, MER- 34%. (The flu is caused by a variety of Influenza viruses while Coronaviruses are behind SARS, past and current, as well as MERS).

The mortality rate as discussed by the National Health Commission (NHC) of China on Feb 4 in Wuhan, China (the origin of the current pandemic) was 4.9%, but nationwide- 2.1%. In some provinces at that time, the mortality rate was 0.16%.

In Jan 29 and again in Feb 10 press conferences, the WHO “had mentioned 2% as a mortality rate estimate”, and later, “In his opening remarks at the March 3 media briefing on Covid-19, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated: ‘Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died. By comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1% of those infected.’”

Because currently there are many infected individuals who were not yet tested, their numbers were not added to the total cases of infection that are published, and therefore, the actual mortality rate is different than what was calculated so far, and will keep changing as more individuals get tested. Also, “Fatality rate can also change as a virus can mutate, according to epidemiologists”.

I looked at the numbers this very morning, total global cases 697,609 and total death cases 33,116. I divided the two and multiplied by 100, and came to a global mortality rate of 4.7%.

I performed the same calculation for the numbers today in regard to the following countries and arrived at the following mortality rates for these countries: China 4%, Italy 11%, Spain 8.3%, Iran 6.8%, UK 6.2%, USA 1.7%, India 2.6%.

I will post more on the content of this post later today or tomorrow.

anita