Many new tests are showing the mortality rate to be much lower than everyone has thought.
Here is some evidence for this: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-testing-undercounting-covid-19-cases-likely/
The problems that caused this are three-fold:
1. The tests themselves gave a lot of false positives and false negatives. The PCR testing technology is known to be unreliable, yet is treated by media and some hospitals as if it is highly reliable. Now the antibody test is available, which shows if someone has ever been exposed to the virus, instead of only testing if it's actively in your body like the PCR test does (because it's an RNA-matching test).
2. Because of the limited number of tests available, only people who had died or near-death were tested. This caused hugely inflated mortality rates, because the samples were not random. Random samples were done on homeless populations, where 36% tested positive yet zero showed symptoms (https://hotair.com/archives/allahpundit/2020/04/15/hmmm-36-boston-homeless-shelter-tested-positive-covid-19-vast-majority-without-symptoms/), and on maternity wards which also showed a large number of asymptomatic carriers. Once these results started coming out, it was clear that almost everyone has already had it.
Which means that the mortality rate is far far lower than we've been hearing. Old calculations put it at 3-4%, but the newer and more comprehensive test studies show that it's more like 0.3% because so many have already had it but weren't counted as corona survivors because they were asymptomatic or had few symptoms, so they never got diagnosed in the first place.
3. The media and governmental reaction was another cause of the over-reaction. The fact the virus was apparently slow-spreading gave companies and governments time to react, and created this first worldwide quarantine situation. This amplified fears, and also created an atmosphere where the mortality rate had to be 3-4% to justify all the lockdowns. So for a long time the media and even medical establishments were trying to justify this very high number, when in reality after true random sampling it has proven to be much lower. Which means the lockdowns were not necessary.
The idea was to "flatten the curve" so hospitals would not get overwhelmed. However the curve has been flat for weeks now, and the hospitals are half-empty. They're permanently laying off staff at many hospitals because of how slow business has been. I have confirmed this with a friend I have who works an a front-line ER doctor with covid cases.
Finally it seems even some hospitals are attributing deaths to covid that may otherwise have been classified as pneumonia. Look at the huge lack of pneumonia deaths this year so far: https://i.stack.imgur.com/3ehhg.png
The virus is still deadly, and definitely is causing problems (14,000 deaths a week in the US), but the intensity of the virus was vastly over-stated due to a combination of factors as described above.
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