It's one thing to spar over covid statistics, where the real/verifiable facts and math should always prevail. There are always a couple guys would just can't/won't get on board because of a political bias.
And then there are always a couple of guys who have to try and throw in some racist accusations.... because of a political bias.
Sad indeed.
I also get that interpretation of the data can make a difference. If we just look at the confirmed cases we have a death rate of around 5.5% last I checked. And I get that you can say, "well, there is data suggesting a lot of people aren't being counted" or "there is data saying deaths are being over counted" - and I can get that line of thinking to a degree.
But even using the data we actually have that supports those ideas, which is biased in favor of a lower death rate, we have an overall death rate of at least 0.4-0.8%. The amount of data supporting this as a minimum death rate at this point is staggering, if not quite irrefutable.
But how someone can take that, ignore all of the concessions that are given to arrive at these numbers as a low end, and then want to push it further and say something like, "This is 'slightly' more deadly than the flu" is just astounding. And it's more than one person in this thread so I don't intend to single anyone out. It's also in the media and in the real world when you come across people.
We have 130,000 people dead at this point. REGARDLESS of the death rate, it has killed more than 2X the number of people the flu would have killed in twice the time. That part IS irrefutable. Could that number be off a little? Sure. But by more than 15%? Unlikely. And if you're willing to say it's 15% off, are you willing to say it's 15% low? No, because it isn't about truth, it is about beliefs and making data fit your beliefs and refusing to see the other possibilities.
And then we have media outlets stirring it up, which is funny because as a republican I like to see my party as free thinking and against the media - but the media plays both sides. They have articles saying the serology tests are showing infection rates 50-80X higher than suspected - but the actual data shows we are catching 1/5 - 1/7 of the cases which means we are only, at best, 7X higher than the confirmed cases. And nobody does the math, they just read the headline and the premise of the article and run with it.
And that doesn't even get into the flaws around false positives, recruitment, lack of peer review, etc. for these studies. But how can I expect people to think that critically when they can't even do the basic math to figure out that 50X higher is just an attention grabbing headline?
And then the CDC has a study that has a low end of 0.2% using some pretty insane assumptions, and articles say, "0.2% death rate" as if it's fact and not just some crazy model to figure the low end.
Sorry for the rant, it's not directed at anyone in particular, it's just venting. haha.
