Study: COVID-19 ‘170 Times Less Deadly than Accidents’ as Cause of Death in U.S.
by Dr. Susan Berry
A public policy research institute that describes itself as “a resource for independent thinkers” has published a study that concludes the COVID-19 infection caused by the novel coronavirus is “170 times less deadly than accidents” as a cause of death in the United States.
In a phone interview with Breitbart News, James Agresti, president of nonprofit research institute Just Facts, said his group’s research and resulting spreadsheet of data have focused on a more comprehensive measure to assess the severity of COVID-19 than those that have been presented in the media.
“Evaluating the severity of COVID-19 based on deaths in a brief timeframe is deceptive because COVID-19 spreads quickly, kills mostly vulnerable people, and then subsides,” he explained. “That short-term outlook is far less relevant than the comprehensive measure used in Just Facts’ study: the total years of life that COVID-19 will rob from all people. Put another way, are you more concerned that you may die during a specific month in your old age or that you may die anytime during your youth or middle age?”
Agresti said his analysis “accounts for the fact that, given a choice, most people would rather die at the age of 70 than 20.”
The study demonstrates that, under a worst-case scenario of 240,000 deaths in the U.S., given mitigation, COVID-19 will be about 170 times less deadly than accidents and 12 to 45 times less lethal than other common causes of untimely death.
Agresti said using the comprehensive measure of “total years of life that COVID-19 will rob from all people” to determine the infection’s lethality is in sync with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) principle that states “the allocation of health resources must consider not only the number of deaths by cause but also by age.”
Hence, the “years of potential life lost” has “become a mainstay in the evaluation of the impact of injuries on public health,” Agresti noted.
In its study, Just Facts observed “the spread of misinformation about COVID-19,” and, in keeping with the CDC’s emphasis that the pandemic is “a rapidly evolving situation,” updates its research each weekday.
According to Just Facts, the “facts” presented thus far show:
- the death rate for people who contract COVID-19 is uncertain but is probably closer to that of the seasonal flu than figures commonly reported by the press.
- the average years of life lost from each COVID-19 death are significantly fewer than from common causes of untimely death like accidents and suicides.
- the virus that causes COVID-19 is “very vulnerable to antibody neutralization” and has limited ability to mutate, which means it is very unlikely to take lives year after year.
- if 240,000 COVID-19 deaths ultimately occur in the United States, the virus will rob about 2.9 million years of life from all Americans who were alive at the outset of 2020, while accidents will rob them of about 409 million years—or about 140 times more than COVID-19.
full story at https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/04/03/study-covid-19-170-times-less-deadly-than-accidents-as-cause-of-death-in-u-s/