Originally Posted by
Dan Druff
One thing possibly overlooked is that there are maybe a shitload of asymptomatic COVID-19 cases, and that the death rate is much lower than we think, because most of the asymptomatic are never tested.
Let's consider the NBA players who were recently found to have COVID-19. Several were asymptomatic. So this is either due to testing false-positives (which I've heard are somewhat of a problem) or that there are a lot of asymptomatic COVID-19 cases out there.
It would make sense that, aside from places like the NBA where everyone exposed gets tested, the test would typically be done for those who are showing symptoms. This would REALLY skew the death rate artificially high, since the asymptomatic wouldn't get counted in the disease stats.
I am bringing this up because there is one and only one scare factor separating COVID-19 from the seasonal flu, and that's the supposed 10-30x higher death rate.
If it turns out this is another Swine Flu -- an illness said to have infected 20% of the US population but killed just 0.02%, then this is much ado about nothing, and we are ruining our economy over a "pandemic" which really is no more dangerous than the seasonal flu we've come to accept as part of normal life since all of us were born.
This really needs to be examined more closely.