Tawfik Hamid — whose expertise is apparently in hating Muslims, given that he’s written a book called “Inside Jihad: How Radical Islam Works, Why It Should Terrify Us, How to Defeat It” — complained in a July 14 Newsmax column that Dr. Anthony Fauci said that he didn’t know where President Trump got his assertion that 99 percent of coronavirus cases are “not a problem”:
Yet even basic research on coronavirus statistics confirms beyond doubt that President Trump is correct.
For example, if anyone consults Worldometer’s coronavirus statistics, he or she can easily see, in the first box on the left of the page, about active cases of coronavirus, the essential statistics showing how many among those active cases have developed only mild symptoms and how many of them have developed more severe or serious conditions.
According to Worldometer’s statistics, 99% of coronavirus infections constitute mild cases, and only 1 percent are in serious or critical condition.
Therefore, Worldometer’s statistics fully support President Trump’s assertion.
Well, we consulted Worldometer’s coronavirus statistics and found that he 1% number referred only to current cases, not all cases. It also does not provide a definition of what it considers to be a “mild” case, and that numerical assertion appears to be contradicted elsewhere on the site. In a page that dates to April, Worldometer reported on a group of 72,314 coronavirus cases in China, where it found (bold in original):
- 80.9% of infections are mild (with flu-like symptoms) and can recover at home.
- 13.8% are severe, developing severe diseases including pneumonia and shortness of breath.
- 4.7% as critical and can include: respiratory failure, septic shock, and multi-organ failure.
- in about 2% of reported cases the virus is fatal.
Worldometer also stated that of the 12.7 million closed cases, more than 707,000, or 6 percent, resulted in death.That seems to be much higher than 1 percent.
Hamid is simply massaging statistics in a desperate attempt to boost Trump. Yet he went on to rant: “I find it difficult to understand why Dr. Fauci has ignored such clear and unmistakable statistics, which are available to anyone who wants to track coronavirus cases. Let us express our appreciation to President Trump for providing the American people with the correct statistics about coronavirus.”
Yeah, not so much.