Here's a classic case where a little critical thinking provides insight into the questionable nature of this simplistic approach to calculating the death rate.

What about the untold masses that had this thing well before covid became part of our vernacular and were misdiagnosed as having the flu (like me and a few family members), or the countless others that have had it asymptomatically but have not been tested and hence aren't part of the "confirmed cases" statistic? When you include those people (a number which is, admittedly, unknowable at this point but is most certainly non-zero), that denominator gets a lot larger, and the death rate, being inversely proportional to the number of cases, falls significantly.

For this reason, the only valid math we can do at this point is deaths divided by the population of the US because we know both of these numbers with reasonable certainty. Using any other numbers is at best bad science, and at worst, fear mongering. And God knows we don't need more of that thanks to CNN.

I just hope for everyone's sake cooler heads prevail and everyone comes out of hiding, or what happens to this country over the next couple of years will make the depression of the 30s look like a day at the beach.