Letter: The U.S. lags behind in coronavirus testing

In a May 15 letter to the editor, James Wickizer stated that “according to multiple sources,” the coronavirus death rate is around 1%.

I have been monitoring Worldometers’ world and U.S. coronavirus data with respect to confirmed cases of the virus and resultant deaths. This data shows that coronavirus deaths per confirmed cases in the U.S. is in excess of 5.9%.

I also looked at published CDC data over the past 10 years or so that showed that influenza mortality over that period averaged 0.13%. The coronavirus has a mortality rate of greater than 45 times compared to influenza per current data.

Contrary to claims by our truthful president, we are currently 39th in the world in terms of tests per million people. Granted, we have done more tests than any other country. With that said, the U.S. number is less than the total tests administered in the three countries that are just behind the U.S. in the number of tests administered. And the combined populations of these countries are about 40 million fewer than the population of the U.S.

Richard Roginski, West Point

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