Misleading: WHO Lowers COVID-19 Death Rate to .14
The Claim
The World Health Organization lowered their COVID-19 death rate estimate to .14%.
News posted on
Emerging story
In October 2020, many social media users posted the claim, saying that COVID-19 is barely more fatal than the flu.
Misbar’s Analysis
WHO experts said that around 10 percent of the world’s population has been infected by COVID-19. That is, very roughly, 780 million people. The current death estimate by the New York Times is 1.06 million. Rounded up, that’s about a .13% death rate.
However, WHO’s estimate is different from that of the New York Times. This isn’t saying that either incorrect, just that their data is from different sources. The New York Times’ official COVID-19 case number is around 36.7 million. Using its death toll count, we get about 3 percent. If that rate is applied to the WHO’s estimate, that’s about 23.4 million deaths.
Why the difference? The NYT gets its information from government health statistics, newspapers, and other health organizations. There are quite a few factors that make this not entirely inaccurate. Not all countries have a good enough infrastructure to have an accurate estimate. They might not have adequate healthcare. Testing is also not available in some regions, which results in a lower official infection rate. According to the WHO, half of the world lacks adequate healthcare. It’s entirely possible that some countries have used fabricated statistics
Further, the CDC puts the COVID-19 death rate at .65%.
