Pandemic not as deadly as initially projected: PIO doc (Curtsy:The Times of India)

Pandemic not as deadly as initially projected: PIO doc

Chidanand.Rajghatta@timesgroup.com

Washington:

An Indian-American Stanford University professor of medicine has said that the actual death rate from the coronavirus pandemic is “likely orders of magnitude lower than the initial estimates”, the observation coming amid widespread resentment in right-wing circles that matter was exaggerated by those intent on damaging the US economy and undermining the Trump presidency.

While not touching on the political or ideological aspects of the issue, Dr Jay Bhattacharya, who is also the director of the Program on Medical Outcomes at Stanford University, told Fox News on Tuesday that the coronavirus, albeit dangerous because of the speed of transmission and lack of vaccine, isn’t as deadly as was initially projected.

Curtsy:The Times of India,New Delhi-16/04/20,Page-09

“Per case, I don’t think it’s as deadly as people thought,” Bhattacharya told Fox News host Tucker Carlson. “The WHO put an estimate out that was, I think, initially 3.4%. It’s very unlikely it is anywhere near that. It’s much likely, much closer to the death rate that you see from the flu per case.”

Bhattacharya and his colleague Dr Eran Bendavid, who is also an associate professor of medicine at Stanford and a core faculty member in the Center for Health Policy, maintained in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that initial morality estimates from the coronavirus were “deeply flawed and the way to find the true death rate would be to look at fatalities as a percentage of people who have been infected with the new coronavirus — not just those who are tested and become confirmed cases. If the number of people infected with the virus is much larger than the number of confirmed cases, projections of fatalities would drop substantially.

The WHO, too, has acknowledged more recently that Covid-19 death rate is between 3% and 4% of reported cases, and if the death rate as a percentage of infections is considered (rather than just reported or confirmed cases), it would be lower.

Link of Full report on www.toi.in

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