However, if people would actually look at the data, they'd realize that the Delta variant is actually less deadly. These headlines are able to gain momentum only because of the absurd public perception that somehow India got hit worse than the rest of the world. In reality, India has one-seventh the death rate per capita of the U.S.; it's just that India got the major winter wave later, when the Western countries were largely done with it, thereby giving the illusion that India somehow suffered worse. Now, the public health Nazis are transferring their first big lie about what happened in India back to the Western world.
Fortunately, the U.K. government has already exposed these headlines as a lie, for those willing to take notice. On June 18, Public Health England published its 16th report on "SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and variants under investigation in England," this time grouping the variants by Greek letters.
As you can see, the Delta variant has a 0.1% case fatality rate (CFR) out of 31,132 Delta sequence infections confirmed by investigators. That is the same rate as the flu and is much lower than the CFR for the ancestral strain or any of the other variants. And as we know, the CFR is always higher than the infection fatality rate (IFR), because many of the mildest and asymptomatic infections go undocumented, while the confirmed cases tend to have a bias toward those who are more evidently symptomatic.
In other words, Delta is literally the flu with a CFR identical to it. This is exactly what every respiratory pandemic has done through history: morphed into more transmissible and less virulent form that forces the other mutations out since you get that one.
Agree. Once again media is trying to scare people with selective reporting of the facts. Delta does spread more than the original Wuhan strain, but the death rate appears to be lower. (Part of that appears to be because we know how to treat it better.) I fully expect the death rate from Covid-19 to decrease even more as more Americans get it.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
Scientists are still tracking the data to determine how deadly it is. Based on hospitalizations in the U.K., the Delta variant does seem to be more likely to lead to hospitalization and death, particularly among unvaccinated people, according to a recent study published in The Lancet.
My Body, My Choice? Australia just shut down again after one Covid-19 death. Do we really want to live that way? Do you want Colorado to be like Los Angeles and mandate masks inside again? Want to finish off small businesses? Want the economy to stumble again as people go hide inside again?
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
CNBC: UK: 60% of those hospitalized right now for Covid-19 have been fully vaccinated. So the vaccine keeps you alive but doesn't keep you out of the hospital?
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
