Covid mortality rate "already twice as bad as the worst flu seasons"

The following is from the Sic Semper Tyrannis comment section in answer to a post by an anonymous contributor ("Deap") who passed along a summary from an "alleged media research and review organization" on what is currently known about the infection/mortality rates and related data on Covid-19:  

There is a lot wrong with this article. A lot of vague, unsupported, and false statements, no links or anything. "Experts", "Leading doctors", etc., again, who are the people saying these things and what are their credentials? I won't go into all of it since that would be too long, but I'll address one thing.

Regarding mortality rate, the statement "latest immunological and serological studies, the overall lethality of Covid-19 (IFR) is about 0.1%" is utter nonsense. Immunological and serological studies are not used to determine lethality, they look at antibody formation and corresponding viral load.

0.1% number is just made up; current US death rate is 0.035% vs. overall population (so 120,000 deaths over 340 million people), Europe is slightly higher at 0.045%.

For comparison, typical flu season is much less severe, it's 0.01% vs. overall population, bad flu season is 0.02%. So, this is already twice as bad as the worst flu seasons, and it still has ways to go.

And yes, there is a discussion to be had on how deaths are attributed (COVID-caused vs. COVID-incidental), but that cuts both ways. Many people likely died before they were tested, especially amongst the older population.

Posted by: voislav | 22 June 2020 at 07:05 PM

The summary posted by Deap has no paragraph breaks; it was pulled from an earlier comment section at SST. Readers can see the version with paragraph breaks here, fifth comment, also by Deap.

Also, an energetic reader at SST did find some of the sources used in the summary. See the summary comment section, 1:02 AM June 23, Terence Gore.

Also, from another reader in the same comment section:

The 122,000 deaths in the US so far is conclusive evidence that COVID-19 is no ordinary flu, which kills about 40,000 a year. And the toll will be much higher, since cases in many states are spiking.

Posted by: JohnH | 23 June 2020 at 10:24 AM

I note that although infections are spiking in certain American states, this doesn't necessarily mean that deaths from the infections are spiking. We'll just have to wait and see.   

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