The One Percent Fallacy

The conventional wisdom about Donald Trump is that he's always lying, like when he told a crowd at an Independence Day speech in Washington that 99 percent of COVID-19 cases are "harmless."  At the same time, Dr. Anthony Fauci says we're in a place that is "really not good" when it comes to the virus, with Trump, a self-professed "stable genius," countering that Dr. Fauci is providing a "false narrative."

"I think we are going to be in very good shape," Trump said, a sentiment echoed by Mike Pence yesterday.

Pure fiction, all of it, but Trump's comment about the virus being 99 percent harmless isn't technically a lie. It is a statement based on a gross misunderstanding of a fact offered up back in March by, ironically, Dr. Fauci himself.

Here's the deal.  Back in March, Dr. Fauci projected that the death rate among people who contract COVID-19 cases would likely be about one (1) percent.  That may have been so, but Trump has obviously taken this to mean that 99 percent of Americans who get COVID-19 would recover and be fine after that, just like most people recover from the flu - which, like COVID-19, is caused by a coronavirus.  But the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is far more deadly, as Dr Fauci noted that the death rate from the flu is 0.1 percent, meaning that COVID-19 kills ten times as many people as the flu.  And, truth be told (but not by Trump), those who do recover from COVID-19 can and likely will have health problems later on as a result of having had the disease.  

Oh yeah, Dr. Fauci's estimated mortality rate for this pandemic may end up being too optimistic. As of yesterday, July 8, 2020, about 3,038,800 Americans have contracted COVID-19, with a death toll of about 131,700.  Based on those figures, the mortality rate is actually 4.3 percent.  Though, to be fair, it was actually higher at the beginning of the pandemic.

And amidst all this, Trump is officially taking the United States out of the World Health Organization and trying to force localities all over America to reopen their schools for live and in person instruction.

The presidential election can't come soon enough.