Philip wrote: ↑Mon Mar 15, 2021 7:23 pm
Rick, when you throw about verbiage like the below -
"
Some experts
estimate..."
And "
assuming the"
"Given the
most likely "
such statements are problematic because they are merely of a speculative nature!
Most people realize that there is an "unreported" component to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The issue for the medical community is how to quantify things that are undocumented.
Let's start with what is actually documented.
Here is the CDC COVID Tracking website
COVID Data Tracker
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracke ... acker-home
The official documented CDC numbers for COVID are currently
Cases in the US = 29.3 million
Deaths in the US = 533 thousand
As Rick points out, the CDC has attempted to provide 'estimates' for unreported cases of Covid-19 in the US.
Here is a CDC study that attempts to quantify estimates for unreported cases of COVID
Estimated Disease Burden of Covid-19
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nc ... urden.html
According to this CDC analysis
Estimated Total infections = 83.1 million
Another interesting datapoint came out a couple of days ago from the American Red Cross
Covid-19 antibodies present in about 1 in 5 blood donations from unvaccinated people, according to data from the American Red Cross
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/15/health/r ... index.html
According to data shared with CNN over email, about 1.5% of donations tested in the first week of July were positive for Covid-19 antibodies. That increased to nearly 4% of donations tested in the first week of October, about 12% of donations tested in the first week of January and nearly 21% of donations tested in the first week of March.
So for the sake of argument, assuming that the American Red Cross donation population is representative of the United States as a whole
that would indicate that the approximate number of
US citizens exposed to the Covid-19 virus = 331 Million X 0.21 = 69 million
For each of these scenarios we have the following mortality rates:
Mortality rate for documented Covid cases = 533,000/29.3 million = 1.8%
Mortality rate using CDC Estimated infections = 533,000/83.1 million = 0.6%
Mortality rate using American Red Cross Covid antibodies in March = 533,000/69 million = 0.8%
The key here is that no matter how you calculate the mortality rate for Covid-19
- if you use the documented CDC numbers
- If you use CDC estimated infections
- If you use American Red Cross Covid antibodies for March
The risk of dying from Covid-19 (1.8% or 0.6% or 0.8%) is still orders of magnitude greater (ie not even close) to the risk of dying from the vaccine that protects us from Covid-19.
So no matter which numbers you use, the truth of the matter remains...
Getting a Covid-19 vaccine is still orders of magnitude "SAFER" than doing nothing and contracting the Covid-19 virus.
The number of US citizens who have died from this pandemic is tragic, and if we take this pandemic seriously and 'love our neighbors' then we should do what we can to prevent further needless covid-19 deaths (such as following CDC guidelines for masks, vaccines, and social distancing).