Name:   MartiniMan - Subject:   Fish says thanks for the help....but Date:   5/6/2021 9:14:50 AM

Goofy, you don't understand how mortality rate is calculated.  It isn't based on the total population.  It is based on the projected total number of cases and projected deaths from the virus.  These have to be estimated for the reasons that were mentioned by others, the numbers you are citing don't capture all the infections nor do they properly characterize the deaths that actually occur from the virus.  MrH is but one of likely hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of infections that occurred but were never reported to any agency.  Someone got sick, never got tested and got better. Many likely happened before they even knew the virus was here and were even testing for it.  The increase in the reported number of infections was a function of two things: 1) the spread of the virus; and 2) the increase in testing.  I can assure you many people had the virus before testing began and many people have had the virus since then and were never tested.  That is why the CDC has to estimate actual mortality rates because the data that you are citing is incomplete and in many cases erroneous.  Here's but one other example.  My borther recently got the Wuhan virus and was tested four times.  Three times he tested positive before he finally got a negative test and could go back to work.  All those positive tests were reported and included in the total number of positive tests, but it was only one person and one infection.

So the CDC has a methodology for adjusting for all these factors and estimating the actual number of cases which is then used to determine a projection of the actual risk of succumbing to a particular virus.  Hence, they provide a range based on varying input parameters and provide their best estimate which usually falls somewhere near the middle of the range.  The actual could be on the higher end or on the lower end....but no way it is 1.8%....not even close.  They do this every flu season to determine the mortality rate for the strains that are happening in any particular year.  In the past all this happened behind the scenes because there was no widespread following of the reported flu cases and reported deaths.  But since this particular virus got so much attention that people like you who don't understand how this works misapply the data and come to incorrect conclusions.