COVID-19 Data

“Just the facts, ma’am.” — Sgt. Friday on the old Dragnet TV show

My latest hero is Dr. Debrorah Birx, the numbers person on VP Mike Pence’s Coronavirus Task Force. She is an avid believer that decisions should be based on data and not speculation. And so she is a data hound, disclosing many important statistics from around the world that are driving many of President Trump’s decisions in our current crisis.

Here are a few of her recent revelations that are my favorites:

- there has been only one COVID-19 virus death in the whole world for those under the age of 15 ... a 14-year old boy in China

- only 1% of all virus deaths have been for people 50-years old and younger

- the average age of all those who have died in Italy is 85 ... with three debilitating health risks

- the mortality rate among those catching the virus in the US is about 1.3%. This compares favorably with a mortality rate in China of over 3%. However, as more testing of those who are asymptomatic proceeds, this death rate should decline. Trump believes that it could go as low as 0.7 or 0.8% versus the rate for our seasonal virus of 0.1%. Dr. Birx doesn’t seem to object to this number (S. Korea’s rate) although she doesn’t endorse it overtly.


I continue to look forward to Dr. Birx’s revelations daily ... as, I assume, Trump does also. (And I wonder why this is not seen as the most important news coming out of these pressers.)