Share
News

Top Official Says Coronavirus Mortality Rate Is Inflated, But Still Much Higher Than the Flu

Share

One of the nation’s top experts on infectious diseases told lawmakers Wednesday that the currently estimated mortality rate for novel coronavirus is likely vastly overstated, but stressed that the disease still poses a “serious risk” and is far more deadly than the common flu.

John Hopkins University reported that as of Wednesday there are over 121,000 confirmed global coronavirus infections and a death toll of over 4,300, producing a mortality rate of 3.5 percent of all known cases.

But there are likely a significant amount of unreported cases from people exhibiting only mild symptoms, and once those are accounted for the mortality rate is likely to drop precipitously, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, said at a House Oversight hearing Wednesday.

“I think if you count all the cases of minimally symptomatic or asymptomatic infection that probably brings the mortality rate somewhere around 1 percent,” Fauci told lawmakers.

But Fauci warned that even with a 1 percent mortality rate, coronavirus, or COVID-19, is still 10 times more lethal than the common flu.

Trending:
KJP Panics, Hangs Up in Middle of Interview When Reporter Shows He Isn't a Democratic Party Propagandist

“This is a really serious problem that we have to take seriously,” he said. “The flu has a mortality of 0.1 percent. This has a mortality of ten times that. And that’s the reason why I want to emphasize we have to stay ahead of the game in preventing this.”

Fauci told lawmakers that the American death toll from coronavirus will rise, but the amount of carnage it will create is “totally dependent upon how we respond to it.”

Are you concerned about coronavirus?

“If we are complacent and don’t do really aggressive containment and mitigation the number could go way up and be involved in many, many millions,” he said.

“If we contain, we can flatten it,” Fauci said, adding that measures the government can take to proactively combat the virus include limiting “the influx of people who are infected coming from the outside, and the ability to contain and mitigate within our own country,” he said.

Countries that have deployed aggressive coronavirus testing procedures generally have a lower known mortality rate, according to a Business Insider report.

South Korea, for example, had conducted 3,692 tests per million citizens as of Sunday. The country has 7,755 known infections and 60 deaths, resulting in a known mortality rate of about 0.8 percent.

By contrast, the United States has seen widespread delays in fully deploying coronavirus testing kits nationwide, resulting in just about five coronavirus tests conducted per million citizens as of Sunday, a rate 700 times less than South Korea, according to Business Insider.

Related:
FDA Waves the White Flag, Agrees to Remove Anti-Ivermectin Posts to Dismiss Suit Brought by Doctors

Previous pandemics have seen their initial mortality rates drop after the full scope of the outbreak was taken into consideration, such as the 2009 H1N1 swine flu pandemic.

In November 2009, amid the global outbreak swine flu, the World Health Organization reported a 1.3 percent mortality rate for the disease.

Swine flu landed at a mortality rate of 0.02 percent once all cases mild and severe were accounted for. The disease ultimately infected between 700 million and 1.4 billion people worldwide.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.

Truth and Accuracy

Submit a Correction →



We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

Tags:
, , , , , , ,
Share
Founded by Tucker Carlson, a 25-year veteran of print and broadcast media, and Neil Patel, former chief policy adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, The Daily Caller News Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit providing original investigative reporting from a team of professional reporters that operates for the public benefit. Photo credit: @DailyCaller on Twitter




Conversation