‘Is the Coronavirus as Deadly as They Say?’: Professors claim more data needed to know mortality rate

Published March 25, 2020 3:24pm ET



Two professors of medicine at Stanford University published an opinion article Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal, suggesting there is little evidence that the coronavirus would kill millions of people without shelter-in-place orders and quarantines.

“Fear of Covid-19 is based on its high estimated case fatality rate—2% to 4% of people with confirmed Covid-19 have died, according to the World Health Organization and others,” the article, headlined “Is the Coronavirus as Deadly as They Say?” and written by Dr. Eran Bendavid and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, reads. “So if 100 million Americans ultimately get the disease, two million to four million could die. We believe that estimate is deeply flawed. The true fatality rate is the portion of those infected who die, not the deaths from identified positive cases.”

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