Dr. Eran Bendavid and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professors of medicine at Stanford, have a must-read op-ed out in today’s WSJ where they argue “the mortality risk from coronavirus infection has been significantly overestimated.”

“Current estimates about the Covid-19 fatality rate may be too high by orders of magnitude”:

My colleagues Eran Bendavid and Jay Bhattacharya argue that the mortality risk from coronavirus infection has been significantly overestimated https://t.co/xifzhToo8W — Keith Humphreys (@KeithNHumphreys) March 25, 2020

Basically their analysis takes into account all of the asymptomatic people (i.e., NBA players and movie stars) who keep showing up with positive tests but who don’t even know they’re sick. Brit Hume, who we’ve turned to during the pandemic, calls it “a critical question”:

A critical question, since the current official U.S. death rate of about 1.4% is almost certainly higher than the actual rate. That’s because the infection number it’s based on inevitably leaves out the large number of cases where there are no symptoms. https://t.co/AF1JKgf7Ao — Brit Hume (@brithume) March 25, 2020

The op-ed argues that the apocalypic scenarios of 2 million dead is out the window with 20,000-40,000 deaths more likely:

2 Stanford professors say coronavirus projections "orders of magnitude too high" + 20K-40K deaths more likely than 2M. "We should undertake immediate steps to evaluate the empirical basis of the current lockdowns," they conclude. https://t.co/vSOoixBo38 — William W. Cummings (@wwcummings) March 25, 2020

They assume the virus was in America starting January 1:

“Evidence suggests the virus…doubles roughly every 3 days. An epidemic seed on Jan 1 implies that by March 9 about 6M people in the U.S. would’ve been infected. As of Mar 23, there were 499 U.S. Covid-19 deaths. If [so], that’s a mortality rate of 0.01%” https://t.co/yHDGnHwYOw — Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) March 25, 2020

And it questions if “a universal quarantine” was worth it:

“A universal quarantine may not be worth the costs it imposes on the economy, community and individual mental and physical health. We should undertake immediate steps to evaluate the empirical basis of the current lockdowns.” https://t.co/VpO6tu5Vku — Ned Ryun (@nedryun) March 25, 2020

Money paragraph (click to enlarge):

Deep breaths, people! This thing is far more prevalent and far less deadly than we previously believed. pic.twitter.com/TLgnWtbVOT — Tyler Cardon (@TyCardon) March 25, 2020

Boy, if this is true, there needs to be a reckoning of some sort:

If … IF it turns out that epidemiologists have missed the boat on this due to relatively simple errors then some people need to be tarred and feathered. Honestly, there should be consequences beyond public shaming. https://t.co/KCdzHOHMWc — Leon Wolf (@LeonHWolf) March 25, 2020

But. . .

We are seeing the spike in cases in New York City so there is that:

The idea that it has spread like wildfire through the population with a low hospitalization/mortality rate makes no sense with the spikes we're seeing now. — Kevin ? Glass (@KevinWGlass) March 25, 2020

In short, we still need more data:

I know many people are afraid because of the unknown severity of this virus. We are getting more data every day. Better information will lead to better decisions of how to go forward. This is one perspective. https://t.co/8bOuvZPguY — Rick Santorum (@RickSantorum) March 25, 2020

Which is why many are calling for an antibody test so we can finally see how much it has spread:

We need random-sample serological testing as soon as possible.https://t.co/rf4MXRnRaf — Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) March 25, 2020

The antibody test is already planned for the UK as one of the ways they can open their economy back up:

#BREAKING: Corona Antibody test kit, using simple finger prick test, could be ready for general public to be tested in Boots or at home within days "not weeks or months" – Professor Sharon Peacock, Director of the National Infection Service in the UKhttps://t.co/98fZ95hRkH — Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) March 25, 2020

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