Roger Ver Apparently Doesn’t Care About Coronavirus

Roger Ver, the well-known Bitcoin Cash (BCH) proponent and ex-CEO of Bitcoin.com, seems to be sure that the world’s reaction to the coronavirus pandemic is overblown.

In a tweet published on March 29, Ver presented a screenshot of statistics comparing the global COVID-19 death toll with that of other illnesses — including seasonal flu, malaria and traffic fatalities — between January 1 and March 25, 2020.

The screenshot went with Ver’s statement: “if YOU are worried about the coronavirus, YOU should self isolate. Leave the rest of us alone.”

Roger Ver did not point to the source of the statistics, which seems to indicate that deaths from traffic fatalities (313,903), malaria (228,095) and suicides (249,904) eclipsed those from coronavirus (21,297) by a factor of over 10 as of March 25; deaths from seasonal flu (113,034) ostensibly outraces those from the virus by a factor of over 5.

HIV/AIDS was the most lethal disease listed on Ver’s screenshot, causing 390,908 deaths in the same period.

As of March 30, the total global death from COVID-19 has surpassed 34,500.

While some countries are careless about the global turmoil, an estimated one-third of the world’s population was under state-enforced lockdown as of Wednesday last week, as governments attempt to halt the coronavirus proliferation and reduce the burden on public health systems.

The discussion around the efficiency and implementation of these interventionist measures — unprecedented in peacetime — heats up within the scientific and political communities.

Ver, a self-identified libertarian, did not give any explanations as to his objections to self-isolation measures, which some claim limit civil liberties, or are a detriment to economy.

The World Health Organization’s official recommendations on containment of the COVID-19 pandemic involve widespread testing, quarantine of confirmed cases, contact tracing, and social distancing measures. Countries like South Korea have been able to avoid lockdowns by starting mass testing, contact tracing and focused quarantining at the early stage of the outbreak.

A cautionary note on the data

The integrity of all statistics currently being used to monitor the pandemic remains a tough issue, as analysts regularly note on its incompleteness due to inadequate testing and the non-admission of initially mild cases to public health facilities.

Numerous reports globally have stated that many victims are likely not to have been diagnosed at the time of death, or that governments have chosen to conceal real mortality rates for political reasons. This inconsistency between different approaches to calculating casualties in different countries obscures the picture.

An outlier?

Ver’s statement was accepted negatively on social media, however, at least one arch-libertarian supported it. On March 26, John McAfee, also employed fatality statistics to support his claim that people are “being manipulated” and should “wake up.”

Other community leaders have focused on charitable initiatives to stop the pandemic, some of them being Binance Charity, Ripple Labs and the #cryptoCOVID19 alliance.