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Originally Posted by 1&onlybillyshears
The specific point made was the verifiable, objective fact that the IFR is around seasonal flu, nothing to do with "covid denialism" on the contrary, the argument assumes covid exists. There is no debate about this, everyone knows this now. That is why its crickets, or ban, when this is pointed out because "covid zealots" won't admit they were wrong about the IFR. Chezlaw is wrong. Why is he not held to a standard whereby he should offer citation to support his point that the IFR is not in the ballpark of flu? You know full well I can provide multiple citations to support my point. He can provide nothing - or if he thinks he can let him cite it here, or wherever.
There is no question that COVID fatality rates are much lower than the early estimates of 2%. The true fatality rate for someone who catches COVID tomorrow, based on what we know now about acute treatment and in states where the health care system is not overwhelmed, is probably closer to .3%.
What I fail to understand is why anyone thinks that some sort of gotcha. .3% is still higher than seasonal flu. And even if it wasn't, severity is just one variable you have to consider when assessing the risk of a virus. The other, of course, is the rate of transmission. Your chances of getting COVID are considerably higher than your chances of getting the flu, in large part because we don't have a vaccine.
To take an extreme example, if a new virus emerged that had a .05% fatality rate, but it was so infectious that virtually everyone in the United States was expected to catch it, that would be still be a big public health issue.