Reevaluating COVID-19 statistics

News outlets have recently highlighted the grim covid milestone of near 1 in 500 deaths for America. The toll of Americans is nearing 700,000 as we approach the 2nd full year of this pandemic.

And IMO the combination of vaccines, masks, social distancing and herd immunity is working. Basic high school math would suggest a rate of approximately .2% over the last 20 months although usually the CDC would have annualized such numbers, and further weighting/analysis will reveal more truths as time goes on. The CDC/WHO thinking machine modeling numbers were much higher initially although by their own admission the science (guesstimating) is still evolving. Estimated rates for Spanish flu are in the .5-.6% range although some of those numbers are also in dispute a century later.

This should put to rest much of the arguments and political haranguing, but I suspect not.

— James Jenkins, Chico