As the US continues to distribute the first COVID-19 vaccines, a viral tweet shared what it said were “COVID-19 survival rates” from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to minimize the severity of the virus and the need for vaccinations.
“CDC COVID-19 survival rates,” said the emoji tweet from Emma Jimenez, a blogger and conservative activist. “Age 0-19 – 99.997%. Age 20-49 – 99.98%. Age 50-69 – 99.5%. Age 70+ – 94.6%. Why a COVID-19 vaccine is pushed so aggressively “Hmmmm.”
The screenshots of the tweet were also shared on Facebook and Instagram, where they were reported as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat fake news and misinformation on News News.
However, the age-specific “survival rates” listed in the post do not come from the CDC. CDC spokeswoman Jasmine Reed told PolitiFact that the agency has not released age-specific COVID-19 survival rates and has no mortality rates available.
“Survival analysis is extremely complex,” Reed said. “The CDC does not have data to calculate survival for COVID-19. It is not clear where social media users receive this information.”
“We don’t have that data, so we don’t know,” said Cindy Prins, an epidemiologist at the University of Florida. “And neither would the person who posted the tweet.”
Incomplete supply
The tweet did not mention a specific CDC source for “COVID-19 survival rates.” PolitiFact tried to reach Jimenez through messages to her conservative Twitter and Facebook accounts, but I didn’t hear.
The figures align with the parameters included as part of CDC planning scenarios designed to help public health agencies model the impact of the pandemic.
In a September document labeled “COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios”, the agency listed five sets of parameters representing different levels of disease severity and transmissibility to help public health agencies make models to estimate the effects. virus.
The infection fatality rates listed in the scenario marked as “best current estimate” correspond to the “survival rates” listed in the tweet. But these infection mortality rates, the document shows, are based on data until August 8. And there are other warnings.
Lead Stories has dismantled a Facebook post citing the same scenarios to wrongly claim that the CDC has reduced the severity of COVID-19 to less than the flu.
The CDC says the scenarios “are not predictions of the expected effects of COVID-19” and “do not reflect the impact of any behavioral changes, social distancing or other interventions.” It is also said that “uncertainty remains around almost all parameters”.
The tweet also ignored the tax that a seemingly low fatality rate can have when a disease spreads uncontrollably. Johns Hopkins University places the ratio of observed deaths – calculated as the number of known deaths divided by the number of confirmed cases – at about 1.8% for the US. At this rate, if every American received COVID-19, there would be nearly 6 million deaths.
Doctors have improved in treating the disease since the pandemic broke out, PolitiFact reported. The number of new COVID-19 cases and deaths reported daily in the US has increased in recent weeks. “Excess deaths” remain above historical norms. The risk of serious coronavirus disease increases with age, the CDC says.
Survival rates are difficult to estimate
In a pandemic, it is difficult to capture data points such as survival rates, Prins told PolitiFact. Such rates are usually calculated for a longer period of time, rather than as an instant.
Deaths and death reporting remain after new cases have been identified, sometimes for months, so we never get to know who “survived” unless we set a time frame that we look at, as we do. with five-year survival rates in cases of cancer or disease disappears and we can look back at the pandemic as a whole, “said Prins.
In addition, we know that there are side effects of COVID-19, such as myocarditis, which may occur well after ‘recovery’, but which could cause death at that later time, so that both survival rates and Mortality rates are more accurate after some time. “
A large-scale vaccination effort would prevent more deaths, protect people from serious disease, slow the spread, and put the United States on a path back to normal.
PolitiFact decision
A tweet said that “CDC COVID-19 survival rates” are 99.997% for people aged 0 to 19, 99.98% for people aged 20 to 49, 99.5% for persons aged between 50 and 69 years and 94.6% for persons over 70 years of age.
The CDC has not released survival rates and has no data to do so. It is unclear where the tweet numbers came from, but they correspond to the figures listed as part of the CDC’s “planning scenarios” used to plan a pandemic response.
We are evaluating this False post.