Tyr-Ziu Saxnot
06-06-2020, 05:05 AM
Fact check: CDC's estimates COVID-19 death rate around 0.26%, doesn't confirm it
Ian Richardson, USA TODAY
USA TODAYJune 5, 2020, 3:54 PM CDT
Scroll back up to restore default view.
The claim: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed a 0.2% death rate for COVID-19
Commentary on the severity and death toll of the coronavirus has been constant on social media throughout the pandemic.
Recent claims have cited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's release of a guidance document that included new estimates about the virus, including the death rate.
"The CDC just confirmed a .2% death rate for COVID-19," says a May 25 post by Facebook user Bill Faudel, which lists many effects of the virus, including rising unemployment and its impacts on the economy and mental health.
Many comments on the post, which had more than 140 shares as of Friday, imply the death rate doesn't justify the measures taken to combat the virus's spread, which include closures of businesses and government-issued stay-at-home orders.
"Choose your own fear, but please stop forcing your fears on me," the post says.
Faudel told USA TODAY he believes too many deaths from other causes were given the title "COVID-19 death" because someone tested positive at the time of death.
The claim that the CDC has confirmed that death rate has been widely shared across Facebook and Instagram.
But experts say the overall death toll has more likely been an undercount due to some people who have died without receiving a test or falsely testing negative for the disease.
And the CDC's published death rate estimates fall in a range and aren't inclusive of preventative actions taken.
What is the CDC's COVID-19 death rate estimate?
The U.S. death toll due to COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus, surpassed 100,000 on May 27. On Thursday, Johns Hopkins Medical Center's COVID-19 tracking map showed more than 1.8 million confirmed cases and more than 107,000 deaths in the U.S.
In May, the CDC published a document titled "Pandemic Planning Scenarios," with estimates about the virus to help modelers and public health officials. It included estimates of the death rate for infected people who show symptoms and of the percentage of people who were infected but asymptomatic.
The CDC document stressed the values are estimates, not predictions of the effects of the virus, and don't reflect the impact of changes in behavior or social distancing.
"New data on COVID-19 is available daily," the document said. "Information about its biological and epidemiological characteristics remain limited, and uncertainty remains around nearly all parameter values."
The document includes five scenarios. The first four are varying estimates of the disease's severity, from low to high, while the fifth represents the "current best estimate."
The range of estimates put the fatality rate for those showing symptoms between 0.2%-1%, with a "best estimate" of 0.4%.
It also places the number of asymptomatic cases between 20%-50%, with a "best estimate" of 35%.
By combining the two estimates, the estimated overall fatality rate of those infected with the virus – with and without symptoms – would be 0.26%.
According to NPR, the CDC has revised the estimate downward from its estimate in mid-April. Internal versions of the CDC scenario documents acquired by the Center for Public Integrity show that on April 14, the CDC had estimated a 0.33% fatality rate. That was up from a March 31 estimate of 0.16%.
Some experts say CDC estimate is too low
Some scientists have said the death rate is likely higher than the CDC estimate. University of Washington biologist Carl Bergstrom, a modeling and computer simulation expert, told CNN on May 22 that he disagreed with the number in the report.
"While most of these numbers are reasonable, the mortality rates shade far too low," he said.
Harvard University epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch told the "80,000 Hours" podcast in a May 18 episode that he believes the fatality rate is "clearly above 0.2% and probably above 0.4%," likely lying somewhere between 0.2%-1.5%.
"I would put most of my money in the intermediate range," he said.
Lipsitch said because the mortality rate varies based on a person's medical risks, finding the rate can be a challenge because sampling cases incorrectly can throw off the calculation.
Infectious diseases physician and epidemiologist Dr. Michael Calderwood told USA TODAY that he also believes the rate should be around 0.5%. He pointed to a May 14 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association that looked at the Diamond Princess Cruise Ship outbreak and found the death rate, adjusted for age, was around that number.
"I think that's in line with what I think a lot of people are estimating at this point," he said.
Like Lipsitch, he said calculating an overall case fatality rate is a challenge due to a variety of factors, including incomplete testing, incomplete tabulation of the number of COVID-19 deaths and differing fatality rates by age.
"Places like Italy, they had an older population in general," he said. "Some of their higher mortality rates were actually based on the skew in their population towards those that were more likely to die."
Early models showed more drastic death rates, but that rate has come into an increasingly clearer focus as scientists have been able to examine more data on the coronavirus, he said.
Serological studies that test for antibodies will eventually give a better picture of the virus's fatality rate, Calderwood said. With the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, it took a few years to understand the full picture, he said.
But 0.5% is still a large number if the virus ends up being exposed to a high number of people, he said. That would be more than 1.6 million deaths if the virus spread to the entire U.S. population of approximately 329 million.
Our ruling: Partly false
It is true that the CDC has reported the possibility of a 0.2% death rate for the coronavirus. More specifically, the CDC in its "Pandemic Planning Scenarios" document estimated the death rate was about 0.26%, a number calculated by combining the CDC estimates for the death rate for symptomatic cases and the number of infected people who have no symptoms.
But that number lies within a range of estimates. Saying the CDC has "confirmed" that as the death rate paints a misleading picture because the CDC has clearly stated the number is subject to change. For those reasons, we rate this claim PARTLY FALSE.
Our fact-check sources:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios
Johns Hopkins University of Medicine: Coronavirus resource center
USA TODAY: U.S. hits 100,000 deaths from coronavirus as states continue to cautiously reopen
Journal of the American Medical Association: Assessment of deaths from COVID-19 and from seasonal influenza
Washington Post: 'Tell me what to do! Please!': Even experts struggle with coronavirus unknowns
"80,000 Hours" podcast: Top epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch on whether we’re winning or losing against COVID-19
CNN: CDC estimates that 35% of coronavirus patients don't have symptoms
NPR: Scientists say new, lower CDC estimates for severity of COVID-19 are optimistic
Ian Richardson covers the Iowa Statehouse for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at irichardson@registermedia.com, at 515-284-8254, or on Twitter at @DMRIanR.
Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here.
Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: CDC estimates COVID-19 death rate of 0.26%
Comments:
219 reactions
Sign in to post a message.
44 viewing
Top Reactions
Jordan
Jordan13 hours ago
At .2% case fatality rate, if you apply that to the number of deaths in Queens NY not only would it require that every single person in Queens has contracted the disease but an additional 20,000 residents that do not exist. Sometimes modelers get caught in analysis paralysis and make predictions based on overly complicating models and overlooking obvious flaws. It's tricky business.
ReplyReplies (6)316
Chester P
Chester P13 hours ago
It's sort of like the people who have been saying that the number of influenza deaths in the USA in 2019 was 62,000. The actual figure is an estimate of 25,000 to 62,000. For whatever reason, some people hit on the top number of the estimate as if that were the number of confirmed cases of influenza deaths. (The confirmed lethal cases were a bit under 15,000, but the CDC plugs that into a formula to account for undiagnosed influenza deaths and gets the 25,000 to 62,000 estimate.)
ReplyReplies (3)153
Johnny
Johnny14 hours ago
Lol! "Partly false?" "Mostly True" is a better word for it. It depends on how you define "confirmed." If you define it as testing literally everybody with tests and anti-body tests to get the absolutely "true" death rate, there will never be a "confirmed" fatality rate. However, if you use the usual definition of confirmed (e.g. agreeing with) the CDC has in fact confirmed that the death rate is estimated to be 0.26%. Right in line with the upper end of a seasonal flu.
The media just doesn't want to admit it because then they would be admitting that A. Trump was right (he was also right about it going down in summer) and B. that their intentional attempts to provoke hysteria has caused billions of dollars of damage (not to mention cost countless lives) unnecessarily.
More
ReplyReplies (25)6317
Metal Monkey
Metal Monkey13 hours ago
The world was shutdown over a virus less deadly than the flu. It's done so much economic damage, it was as costly as a war (if not more so). The loss of rights so others may not be infected or die was wasted. Many gave them up by choice, and it seems it was really for naught
ReplyReplies (28)9834
JW
JW13 hours ago
100% true statement: "Faudel told USA TODAY he believes too many deaths from other causes were given the title "COVID-19 death" because someone tested positive at the time of death. "
This has been proven and also what has been proven is medical examiners given untrained and unqualified nurses the OK to fill out cause of death on the certificates. These 2 things were both proven on NPR.
Another fact and proof is all persons that have died in the US get an examination and as of the middle of March, get a Covid19 test, which is a swab in the nose. NPR again
So many misleading claims in this story from their "Fact Check" list, which if you read the information from those news sources you will always see at the bottom of the stories the real information.
Why doesn't the story also note that 93% of people that died from Covid19 had underlying conditions. This is easily found of EVERY health departments website when the daily totals are announced ! That alone tells you Covid19 is not the deciding factor in someones death.
Another PROVEN FACT the media is OVER HYPING Covid19 !
More
ReplyReplies (6)4912
pl
pl14 hours ago
this whole fiasco is nothing but a dress up influenza virus. They claim that this is a new virus, but virus mutates every other two weeks and bacteria is even faster. They claim that we have no immunity towards the virus, but 87% of the positive patients are asymptomatic. If it is really new, then how come the death rates are heavier. If we track the trajectory of this covid-19, it stars in fall, peaks in winter and declines in summer. Which is virtually the same as a typical influenza virus. After billions of dollars are wasted, no one is willing to come out and call this an influenza virus?
More
ReplyReplies (11)5025
scouts
scouts14 hours ago
Fact Check:
Figures on virus are from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
Population of World = 7,800,000,000
Total case of virus in World = 6,789,349
Total deaths caused by virus in World = 396,191
% of World population infected 1,443,613= .09%
% of World population not infected = 99.91%
% of World deaths due to virus = .005%
% of World not dead from virus - 99.995%
Calculation process = % of virus (dead or infected ) / Total population x 100 = %
More
ReplyReplies (4)265
Ray G
Ray G13 hours ago
So a "facebook user" is now a credible source for medical information?
ReplyReplies (1)202
Brent
Brent14 hours ago
That is hilarious! Remember when they were saying the death rate would be 1-2% or that 2 million Americans would die? I don't even think the results of this are correct either because they have been counting gunshot deaths as COVID as long as the person who was shot had it. Even people that were about to die and were on life support but contracted the disease were listed to have died as Coronavirus. I just read a book about this and it came out a few weeks ago. Everything has been a complete lie to create panic and to get people to want to get vaccinated! If you want to know the book all you have to do is ask and the author was a New York Times journalist for 11 years.
Remember what I stated many months ago.
That--THEY- were going to use this to push THEIR agenda.
Now that--THEY- have pretty much weakened USA and the rest of the world- look at what some truth is finally bringing.
Death rate-has never even come anywhere close to the extreme actions that were taken.
And that is because -THEY- promoted fear , fear and more fear - by -LYING- and organized media/government actions/propaganda.-Tyr
Ian Richardson, USA TODAY
USA TODAYJune 5, 2020, 3:54 PM CDT
Scroll back up to restore default view.
The claim: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed a 0.2% death rate for COVID-19
Commentary on the severity and death toll of the coronavirus has been constant on social media throughout the pandemic.
Recent claims have cited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's release of a guidance document that included new estimates about the virus, including the death rate.
"The CDC just confirmed a .2% death rate for COVID-19," says a May 25 post by Facebook user Bill Faudel, which lists many effects of the virus, including rising unemployment and its impacts on the economy and mental health.
Many comments on the post, which had more than 140 shares as of Friday, imply the death rate doesn't justify the measures taken to combat the virus's spread, which include closures of businesses and government-issued stay-at-home orders.
"Choose your own fear, but please stop forcing your fears on me," the post says.
Faudel told USA TODAY he believes too many deaths from other causes were given the title "COVID-19 death" because someone tested positive at the time of death.
The claim that the CDC has confirmed that death rate has been widely shared across Facebook and Instagram.
But experts say the overall death toll has more likely been an undercount due to some people who have died without receiving a test or falsely testing negative for the disease.
And the CDC's published death rate estimates fall in a range and aren't inclusive of preventative actions taken.
What is the CDC's COVID-19 death rate estimate?
The U.S. death toll due to COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus, surpassed 100,000 on May 27. On Thursday, Johns Hopkins Medical Center's COVID-19 tracking map showed more than 1.8 million confirmed cases and more than 107,000 deaths in the U.S.
In May, the CDC published a document titled "Pandemic Planning Scenarios," with estimates about the virus to help modelers and public health officials. It included estimates of the death rate for infected people who show symptoms and of the percentage of people who were infected but asymptomatic.
The CDC document stressed the values are estimates, not predictions of the effects of the virus, and don't reflect the impact of changes in behavior or social distancing.
"New data on COVID-19 is available daily," the document said. "Information about its biological and epidemiological characteristics remain limited, and uncertainty remains around nearly all parameter values."
The document includes five scenarios. The first four are varying estimates of the disease's severity, from low to high, while the fifth represents the "current best estimate."
The range of estimates put the fatality rate for those showing symptoms between 0.2%-1%, with a "best estimate" of 0.4%.
It also places the number of asymptomatic cases between 20%-50%, with a "best estimate" of 35%.
By combining the two estimates, the estimated overall fatality rate of those infected with the virus – with and without symptoms – would be 0.26%.
According to NPR, the CDC has revised the estimate downward from its estimate in mid-April. Internal versions of the CDC scenario documents acquired by the Center for Public Integrity show that on April 14, the CDC had estimated a 0.33% fatality rate. That was up from a March 31 estimate of 0.16%.
Some experts say CDC estimate is too low
Some scientists have said the death rate is likely higher than the CDC estimate. University of Washington biologist Carl Bergstrom, a modeling and computer simulation expert, told CNN on May 22 that he disagreed with the number in the report.
"While most of these numbers are reasonable, the mortality rates shade far too low," he said.
Harvard University epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch told the "80,000 Hours" podcast in a May 18 episode that he believes the fatality rate is "clearly above 0.2% and probably above 0.4%," likely lying somewhere between 0.2%-1.5%.
"I would put most of my money in the intermediate range," he said.
Lipsitch said because the mortality rate varies based on a person's medical risks, finding the rate can be a challenge because sampling cases incorrectly can throw off the calculation.
Infectious diseases physician and epidemiologist Dr. Michael Calderwood told USA TODAY that he also believes the rate should be around 0.5%. He pointed to a May 14 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association that looked at the Diamond Princess Cruise Ship outbreak and found the death rate, adjusted for age, was around that number.
"I think that's in line with what I think a lot of people are estimating at this point," he said.
Like Lipsitch, he said calculating an overall case fatality rate is a challenge due to a variety of factors, including incomplete testing, incomplete tabulation of the number of COVID-19 deaths and differing fatality rates by age.
"Places like Italy, they had an older population in general," he said. "Some of their higher mortality rates were actually based on the skew in their population towards those that were more likely to die."
Early models showed more drastic death rates, but that rate has come into an increasingly clearer focus as scientists have been able to examine more data on the coronavirus, he said.
Serological studies that test for antibodies will eventually give a better picture of the virus's fatality rate, Calderwood said. With the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, it took a few years to understand the full picture, he said.
But 0.5% is still a large number if the virus ends up being exposed to a high number of people, he said. That would be more than 1.6 million deaths if the virus spread to the entire U.S. population of approximately 329 million.
Our ruling: Partly false
It is true that the CDC has reported the possibility of a 0.2% death rate for the coronavirus. More specifically, the CDC in its "Pandemic Planning Scenarios" document estimated the death rate was about 0.26%, a number calculated by combining the CDC estimates for the death rate for symptomatic cases and the number of infected people who have no symptoms.
But that number lies within a range of estimates. Saying the CDC has "confirmed" that as the death rate paints a misleading picture because the CDC has clearly stated the number is subject to change. For those reasons, we rate this claim PARTLY FALSE.
Our fact-check sources:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios
Johns Hopkins University of Medicine: Coronavirus resource center
USA TODAY: U.S. hits 100,000 deaths from coronavirus as states continue to cautiously reopen
Journal of the American Medical Association: Assessment of deaths from COVID-19 and from seasonal influenza
Washington Post: 'Tell me what to do! Please!': Even experts struggle with coronavirus unknowns
"80,000 Hours" podcast: Top epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch on whether we’re winning or losing against COVID-19
CNN: CDC estimates that 35% of coronavirus patients don't have symptoms
NPR: Scientists say new, lower CDC estimates for severity of COVID-19 are optimistic
Ian Richardson covers the Iowa Statehouse for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at irichardson@registermedia.com, at 515-284-8254, or on Twitter at @DMRIanR.
Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here.
Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: CDC estimates COVID-19 death rate of 0.26%
Comments:
219 reactions
Sign in to post a message.
44 viewing
Top Reactions
Jordan
Jordan13 hours ago
At .2% case fatality rate, if you apply that to the number of deaths in Queens NY not only would it require that every single person in Queens has contracted the disease but an additional 20,000 residents that do not exist. Sometimes modelers get caught in analysis paralysis and make predictions based on overly complicating models and overlooking obvious flaws. It's tricky business.
ReplyReplies (6)316
Chester P
Chester P13 hours ago
It's sort of like the people who have been saying that the number of influenza deaths in the USA in 2019 was 62,000. The actual figure is an estimate of 25,000 to 62,000. For whatever reason, some people hit on the top number of the estimate as if that were the number of confirmed cases of influenza deaths. (The confirmed lethal cases were a bit under 15,000, but the CDC plugs that into a formula to account for undiagnosed influenza deaths and gets the 25,000 to 62,000 estimate.)
ReplyReplies (3)153
Johnny
Johnny14 hours ago
Lol! "Partly false?" "Mostly True" is a better word for it. It depends on how you define "confirmed." If you define it as testing literally everybody with tests and anti-body tests to get the absolutely "true" death rate, there will never be a "confirmed" fatality rate. However, if you use the usual definition of confirmed (e.g. agreeing with) the CDC has in fact confirmed that the death rate is estimated to be 0.26%. Right in line with the upper end of a seasonal flu.
The media just doesn't want to admit it because then they would be admitting that A. Trump was right (he was also right about it going down in summer) and B. that their intentional attempts to provoke hysteria has caused billions of dollars of damage (not to mention cost countless lives) unnecessarily.
More
ReplyReplies (25)6317
Metal Monkey
Metal Monkey13 hours ago
The world was shutdown over a virus less deadly than the flu. It's done so much economic damage, it was as costly as a war (if not more so). The loss of rights so others may not be infected or die was wasted. Many gave them up by choice, and it seems it was really for naught
ReplyReplies (28)9834
JW
JW13 hours ago
100% true statement: "Faudel told USA TODAY he believes too many deaths from other causes were given the title "COVID-19 death" because someone tested positive at the time of death. "
This has been proven and also what has been proven is medical examiners given untrained and unqualified nurses the OK to fill out cause of death on the certificates. These 2 things were both proven on NPR.
Another fact and proof is all persons that have died in the US get an examination and as of the middle of March, get a Covid19 test, which is a swab in the nose. NPR again
So many misleading claims in this story from their "Fact Check" list, which if you read the information from those news sources you will always see at the bottom of the stories the real information.
Why doesn't the story also note that 93% of people that died from Covid19 had underlying conditions. This is easily found of EVERY health departments website when the daily totals are announced ! That alone tells you Covid19 is not the deciding factor in someones death.
Another PROVEN FACT the media is OVER HYPING Covid19 !
More
ReplyReplies (6)4912
pl
pl14 hours ago
this whole fiasco is nothing but a dress up influenza virus. They claim that this is a new virus, but virus mutates every other two weeks and bacteria is even faster. They claim that we have no immunity towards the virus, but 87% of the positive patients are asymptomatic. If it is really new, then how come the death rates are heavier. If we track the trajectory of this covid-19, it stars in fall, peaks in winter and declines in summer. Which is virtually the same as a typical influenza virus. After billions of dollars are wasted, no one is willing to come out and call this an influenza virus?
More
ReplyReplies (11)5025
scouts
scouts14 hours ago
Fact Check:
Figures on virus are from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
Population of World = 7,800,000,000
Total case of virus in World = 6,789,349
Total deaths caused by virus in World = 396,191
% of World population infected 1,443,613= .09%
% of World population not infected = 99.91%
% of World deaths due to virus = .005%
% of World not dead from virus - 99.995%
Calculation process = % of virus (dead or infected ) / Total population x 100 = %
More
ReplyReplies (4)265
Ray G
Ray G13 hours ago
So a "facebook user" is now a credible source for medical information?
ReplyReplies (1)202
Brent
Brent14 hours ago
That is hilarious! Remember when they were saying the death rate would be 1-2% or that 2 million Americans would die? I don't even think the results of this are correct either because they have been counting gunshot deaths as COVID as long as the person who was shot had it. Even people that were about to die and were on life support but contracted the disease were listed to have died as Coronavirus. I just read a book about this and it came out a few weeks ago. Everything has been a complete lie to create panic and to get people to want to get vaccinated! If you want to know the book all you have to do is ask and the author was a New York Times journalist for 11 years.
Remember what I stated many months ago.
That--THEY- were going to use this to push THEIR agenda.
Now that--THEY- have pretty much weakened USA and the rest of the world- look at what some truth is finally bringing.
Death rate-has never even come anywhere close to the extreme actions that were taken.
And that is because -THEY- promoted fear , fear and more fear - by -LYING- and organized media/government actions/propaganda.-Tyr