The Coronavirus Death Rate Revisited

On April 7^th, 2020, I published an article entitled “The True Coronavirus Death Rate – A Horrifying Prospect”.  I had concluded, from the data I had been observing, that the Coronavirus Death Rate would end around 20%.

I am using data from 2 sources:

• worldometers.info/coronavirus/
• cdc.gov

The CDC publishes data every day updating the Total Number of Cases and the Total Number of Deaths. By entering this data into an Excel Spreadsheet, I can calculate a number of things, such as, the number of New Cases and New Deaths per day.  I consider the CDC the source of record for the United States.

I use the worldometers.info/coronavirus/ website for International Data.  One thing they publish that the CDC doesn’t, is the Case Fatality Rate.  Ergo, I’ve been using the data on this website as my source for the Case Fatality Rate.  Actually, what worldometers.info/coronavirus/ publishes that enables them to determine the CFR is the Number of Closed Cases.  They simply divide the Number of Deaths by the Number of Closed Cases, and they arrive at the Case Fatality Rate.

I want to generate a Case Fatality Rate from the CDC numbers.

The issue I’m having with the data from worldometers.info/coronavirus/, however, is that their data for the United States is significantly higher than the CDC.

For example, right now:

The CDC says there has been 554,849 Total Cases and 21,942 Total Deaths in the United States.

worldometers.info/coronavirus/ says there has been 586,941 Total Cases and 23,640 Total Deaths in the United States.

I can live with that, but what really bugs me is the Total Recovered Number at 36,948.  This means that there would only be 60,588 total closed cases in the United States.  At 60,588 Total Closed Cases, it means that the worldometers’ website considers the average American Coronavirus Case to last about 18 days.  If I use the CDC data and generate Closed Cases from 18 days prior, I get seven Case Fatality Rates of over a 100% and three over 200% in only 28 calculations.  It is impossible for more people to die from the virus than have the virus.  I know that an 18 day average case time is not correct.

After a while, it doesn’t matter how many Total Cases there have been, it only matters how many cases are open.  For example, 554,849 Americans DO NOT have the Coronavirus right now, a large portion of them have already Recovered; the question is, “how many?”

On April 7^th, 2020, Newsweek.com published this article:

“Over 20,000 novel coronavirus patients in the U.S., the global epicenter of the outbreak, have recovered from infection as of Monday, according to the latest figures from Johns Hopkins University.

The virus, which was first detected in Wuhan, China, has infected over 1.3 million people across at least 184 countries and regions to date. While more than 76,500 have died, over 292,400 have recovered.

The U.S. has seen more than double the number of recoveries than South Korea, which reported at least 6,694. South Korea formerly had the highest number of cases outside China.

America has more than 369,000 confirmed cases and counting, with New York reporting the highest number of infections of any state at 130,689 as of Monday, according to the latest figures from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is yet to release the official number of recoveries in the country from COVID-19, the disease caused by the new strain of coronavirus.”

Source: www.newsweek.com/coronavirus-recoveries-us-cases-deaths-cdc-1496485

Does the CDC really know?  If they know, why don’t they say?  Worldometers has no issue with stating the Number of Closed Cases, why does the CDC? I don’t believe it, but they’re still brave enough to publish it.

If the CDC published the Number of Closed Cases, I could immediately calculate the Case Fatality Rate.

One of two things are going to happen when the CDC finally publishes the Total Number of Closed Cases – we’re going to find out if the CFR% is higher or lower than we’ve been led to believe, and in either scenario, it’s not going to be good for the CDC.

The people who are economically destroying the Lives of millions of Americans MUST JUSTIFY their actions with a dramatically inflated Death Rate, otherwise, the irreparable damage they are inflicting upon our society because of the Fear and Terror they’ve generated would be woefully disproportionate to the actual Threat.

I have decided to generate my own CFR using the numbers from the CDC.  To do so, I will assume an average 14 day case time.  From what I’ve read, it seems like a sensible number.  Some cases last longer, and some cases are shorter, but the average seems to be about 14 days.  This number also generates the fewest absurd anomalies (e.g. CFR’s in 100% to 200% range).

There is an Average Case Length.  Right now, nobody can say what it is for certain, but it does exist.  With my spreadsheet, I could instantly generate a CFR from any Average Case Length I want.

To establish the Number of Closed Cases I retrieve the Number of Total Cases published by the CDC from 14 days ago.  I assume that the Total Number of Cases from 14 days ago have more or less resolved.  I now call this the Number of Closed Cases.

To calculate the CFR, I now divide the Total Number of Deaths by the Number of Closed Cases.  To calculate the Number of Active Cases I subtract the Number of Closed Cases from the Total Number of Cases.

This gives me:

• Total Cases = 554,849
• Estimated Closed Cases = 140,904
• Estimated Active Cases = 413,945
• Total Deaths = 21,942
• Estimated Case Fatality Rate = 0.1557230 or 15.6%

At a 15.6% CFR, if all 329,425,000 Americans contracted the Coronavirus, 51,299,049 would die.

However, if only 1,000,000 Americans contracted the Coronavirus, only 155,723 would die.

But here’s something else I’m seeing in the numbers – the CFR has been dropping for six straight days.  Yesterday, the CFR was nearly 17%.   This makes a whole lot of sense to me.   This is what I was not seeing in the worldometers numbers, they were holding at a steady CFR of more than 30%.

Last Saturday the CFR = 18%

Last Friday the CFR = 19%

Last Thursday the CFR = 21%

Last Wednesday the CFR = 23%

Last Tuesday the CFR = 27%

How low will it go?

Now, a Test of my Theory…

IF I’m right about the 14 day Average Case time and the 15% CFR holds, THEN in 14 Days (04/27/2020), the Total Number of Deaths should equal about 86,403.

I hope I’m wrong. I hope it’s lower, much lower.