Observation though shows that damn near no one is dying of the 'rona, and by that I mean of the 'rona by itself. even if you accept all the deaths mentioned as being the result of covid, the death rate nation wide is something like .0015, The metrics have been massaged and manipulated. .
I'm not sure your death rate number is valid, Sam. The case fatality rate is running about 2.1% worldwide (using Worldometer,com figures), a little lower than that here in the USA (1.8%), a little higher in Brazil (2.7%) and South Africa (3.4%). These figures are consistent with death rates from SARS-CoV2 in the region I practice medicine (south Texas) and I can assure you the deaths and death rates from this illness I have witnessed are quite real.
It's been quite evident to us in the ER that the Rona is pretty hard to catch... but when it is caught, it can be a bitch and a half on yer ass. Myself, I was intubating people without wearing PPE for about 2 weeks before we knew they had CoV2 and was more or less in constant contact with very sick patients for the next 10 months, and I did not "catch" it. Two of my nurses were hospitalized with it, though, in the same exposure environment, and one of our local docs died.
It's because of this that I have been saying for quite some time that it is both a much more serious disease than the naysayers say it is, bit a much less serious disease than the CNN CHicken Littles say it is.
Now: we are in a lull in the pandemic here in the USA, and deaths are waaaaay down nationwide, no matter what the fearmongers on the teevee infotainment networks are currently shrieking about. But on the other side of the equator the trend is mostly upward, especially in S. America and southern Africa. I expect we will see an upward shift in cases come fall, but because the USA and Europe have vaccinated a majority of our vulnerable elderly population, most of those new infections are likley to occur in the younger population, who are less prone to severe disease and death. I guess we will see.
