The controversial Ethiopian politician and Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus , claimed in a press conference in early March that the fatality rate for the coronavirus was many multiples that of the fatality rate of the common flu.

This egregiously false premise

The Director General of the WHO spoke on March 3, 2020 and shared this related to the coronavirus:

While many people globally have built up immunity to seasonal flu strains, COVID-19 is a new virus to which no one has immunity. That means more people are susceptible to infection, and some will suffer severe disease. TRENDING: Crowd Begins Chanting "Fill The Seat" at Trump Rally in North Carolina - President Trump Announces He Will Name Nominee this Week - A WOMAN Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died. By comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1% of those infected.

Here is the video of Dr. Ghebreyesus’s remarks.

This statement led to the greatest panic in world history as the global elite media shared and repeated that the coronavirus was many, many times more deadly than the common flu.

The problem is his statement is false.

A look at the numbers:

** Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus used the actual number of deaths due to coronavirus divided by confirmed cases to get his 3.4% mortality rate number (from last week -since that time the mortality rate based on current reported numbers is near 4%)

** Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus then compared the actual coronavirus mortality rate to an estimated flu mortality rate of 0.1% — The US flu mortality rate is based on an estimated 22,000 deaths divided by an estimated 36 million flu cases giving a 0.1% mortality rate.

** Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus compared known numbers for coronavirus (3.4 percent mortality rate) but did not include the estimated number of those infected who are asymtomatic. This number is likely in the tens of thousands and could be in the millions! There is no way of knowing right now. One study released this week revealed that 6 of 7 people infected by coronavirus are asymptomatic! They do not know they are infected!

** Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus then compared the known numbers of 206,845 cases of coronavirus to the millions of estimated annual cases of flu cases. Again he does not include the asymtomatic cases, the 6 of 7 people infected who do not suffer severe symptoms.

** If asymtomatic cases are included in Ghebreyesus’s calculation the actual mortality rate of the coronavirus is somewhere between 0.2% to 0.8% or lower.

** Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’s calculations of a 3.4% mortality rate is off by nearly 3.0%!

And then there’s this…

The same World Health Organization in January found “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission” of the coronavirus.

Wow.

Hat Tip Marooned in Marin.