May 18, 2020: COVID-19 Is Way Worse than Ordinary Flu

 

5/18/20: Yesterday, on the main fan site for the Cincinnati Bengals, I was reading a story about chances the team would be able to open up the 2020 season on schedule. Several loyal fans commented, insisting that the NFL should have no problem going forward. Because – really – the mortality rate for COVID-19 was no worse than regular flu.

 

I was dubious, to say the least.

 

I keep checking the numbers and that “it’s just the flu” kind of assessment doesn’t hold up. 

 

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Blogger admits blundering and using Trump Math

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This next section, I realize while editing what I said on my blog in September 2021, is a grand botch. I will add corrections in italics, comparing my error to Trump Math, which we have often highlighted.

 

When two more Bengals fans insisted that the “real death rate” from the coronavirus was one-tenth to four-tenths of one percent, I felt compelled to comment. First, I checked the CDC website, which gave a tally of the dead: 91,664, as of today. Then I did the math. If CDC had the number right and even if one percent of people (this should have read “one-tenth of one percent”) who contracted the coronavirus died, that would have meant we had already had 9,166,400 cases of COVID-19 in this country. Yet, I was supposed to believe the top scientists in the country didn’t know. (Johns Hopkins was reporting 1.5 million cases in the U.S. at the time. But if only “one tenth of one percent” of patients were dying, in fact, that would have meant we had already had 91,664,000 COVID-19 infections.)

 

These other Bengals lovers were saying the death rate was one-tenth of one percent. That would be a fatality rate similar to seasonal flu – one death for every 1,000 cases. That would indicate that we had already had 91,664,000 cases in this country (here, I used the proper “one-tenth of one percent” figure and came up with the right figure. So, I wasn’t as dumb as President Trump, at least, because he never comes up with the proper numbers.)

I went on to add:

 

I can’t buy that kind of math, even though, in right-wing land, it’s the new way of saying, Trump is actually doing a great job handling this crisis and we should reopen all restaurants, bars and stadiums and get out there and cough on each other to our heart’s content.

 

It would also have made much better sense to figure the number of cases we’d have had to have had if “four-tenths of a percent” of all patients were dying. The number would still have been highly unrealistic, but not quite as absurd as the “one-tenth” argument. If four patients out of every 1,000 were dying, then that would mean we had already had 22,916,000 cases at the time.

 

So, don’t I feel dumb.

 

Then again, not as dumb as Trump and his most loyal fans. When I check the numbers today, 9/28/21, CDC is reporting a death toll from COVID of 686,639, with that total through Sept. 26.

 

Here the math is pretty clear. If one percent of patients died, we would have had to have had 68,663,900 infections. If the “one-tenth of one percent” figure had ever been right, we’d have had to have had 686,639,000 cases, or more than twice the U.S. population. Anyway, I try to admit it when I find errors in what I have said.

 

I’m not like Trump, who can’t even admit when he makes ordinary verbal slips. See, for example, “Tim Apple.”

 

For much more serious examples, see Trump say he believes Putin when Putin says he didn’t interfere in the 2016 election – and then Trump said he misspoke, and meant to add one more word. But the greatest fool in the world could have looked at his words in context, and seen that…no…Trump didn’t misspeak. He actually said he believed the authoritarian killer, rather than U.S. intelligence.

 

Your humble blogger has covered that disastrous moment in presidential history at great length previously, and – in that case – with great accuracy. For reaction from other Republicans, go to this link.)

 

 

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“On behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!” 

MEANWHILE, members of Team Trump continued to go tweeting merrily along. Papa Trump got off a classic mishmash of falsehoods with this: 

Wow! The Front Page @washingtonpost Headline reads, “A BOOST IN TESTS, BUT LACK OF TAKERS.” We have done a great job on Ventilators, Testing, and everything else. Were left little by Obama. Over 11 million tests, and going up fast. More than all countries in the world, combined.

 

First, let’s ignore the stupidity. Trump continues to blame his predecessor for not handling a virus that did not exist when Obama exited the White House. Disinfectant Don also hopes his silly supporters won’t realize that he could have ramped up any government program he chose – in the three years and four months since he plunked down in the Oval Office. He could have focused on pandemic threats, instead of touting his Space Force, or obsessing about the Great Wall of Trump. 

It’s also worth noting that the Washington Post story does not validate Trump’s handling of the crisis. The Post did say there were at least a dozen states, like Utah, which had the capacity to test more people than it had people showing up to be tested. It wasn’t because the federal government had done such a good job of handling the threat. In many sparsely-populated states – like Utah – large percentages of people live a long way from testing sites. There’s also mass confusion about who should take tests and who needn’t bother. And anyone who has listened to Trump babble in press conferences knows how confusing his “advice” has been. 

“Bartender, give me a shot of bleach!”

 

Finally, many states have the lab capacity to test more people than they have done. Four months into this crisis they are still having difficulty procuring “personal protective equipment (PPE), nasal swabs and reagents, the chemicals necessary to process tests.” California is using only 40% of its testing capacity due, the governor says, to “supply-chain constraints.” In Chicago testing at many urgent-care facilities ground to a halt when medical staff ran out of kits. In Washington D.C., right outside the White House front door, labs could test 3,700 people per day. But they have the necessary reagents to do less than half that many tests. 

True, a close reading of the story in the Post would indicate that Team Trump is doing a better job lately of addressing the crisis. 

But “better” isn’t high praise when you start off with a baseline of incredible blundering and sustained virus-denial.

 

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ALSO TWEETING sweet nonsense on Monday, we had this:

 

I should have added: “or my granddaughter.”