March 26, 2020

How Deadly Is the China Virus?

There’s much to learn, but the highly contagious virus may not have near the mortality rate some fear.

As the numbers of infected and of those dying from the global China Virus pandemic continue to increase exponentially on a daily basis, the question many Americans may be asking is this: How deadly is this virus? Is it worse than the flu, which kills between 20,000 and 60,000 Americans every year? Well, as testing has yet to catch up with this rapidly expanding disease, we are currently left only with educated guesses — guesses that seem to keep changing at the rate the virus spreads.

What has been established is that COVID-19 is highly contagious, likely three to four times as contagious as the annual flu. In fact, it is this high contagious rate that has governments, including cities, counties, and states around the U.S., shutting down vast swaths of the economy and issuing quarantines and shelter-in-place directives in the hopes of preventing hospitals and medical facilities from becoming overwhelmed.

However, adding to the confusion and unease are seemingly vastly divergent fatality rates coming from different countries. For example, the COVID-19 fatality rate being reported out of Italy is a frightening 10%, whereas South Korea, which saw an early high number of infections, has seemingly contained them and maintained a much lower fatality rate of 1.38%. Currently the U.S. COVID-19 fatality rate is 1.5%. What accounts for such drastically different results? Several educated opinions have been proposed, such as the fact that the virus is most dangerous to the elderly and Italy happens to have the fifth-oldest population on the planet. But that is far from conclusive regarding the disparity of results.

The Wall Street Journal recently observed that the COVID-19 mortality rate may actually be much lower than the current World Health Organization estimate of 3.4%. Using the last data, the Journal notes, “The epidemic started in China sometime in November or December. The first confirmed U.S. cases included a person who traveled from Wuhan on Jan. 15, and it is likely that the virus entered before that: Tens of thousands of people traveled from Wuhan to the U.S. in December. Existing evidence suggests that the virus is highly transmissible and that the number of infections doubles roughly every three days. An epidemic seed on Jan. 1 implies that by March 9 about six million people in the U.S. would have been infected. As of March 23, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 499 Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. If our surmise of six million cases is accurate, that’s a mortality rate of 0.01%, assuming a two week lag between infection and death. This is one-tenth of the flu mortality rate of 0.1%. Such a low death rate would be cause for optimism.”

Indeed, that would be cause for optimism, but it also means the sobering reality that even at that lower estimated mortality rate, COVID-19 will likely end up killing between 20,000 and 40,000 Americans. In the grand scheme of things, of course, death is a reality none of us will escape. We have been fortunate to live at a time in history where our technological innovations and medical developments have led to Americans living longer, healthier lives. Many of us are not confronted by the reality of death on a regular basis, so we fall into the luxury of not thinking about it. We hope this pandemic will make clear the reality of the frailty and preciousness of life, and cause us to soberly contemplate that deeper, higher, and more significant truth — our eternal destiny.

(Corrected for mortality versus fatality rate, and edited for clarity.)

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.