A leaked document from the US Department of Homeland Security shows that the US government's working assumption is that coronavirus is less deadly than it is often assumed to be, The Spectator reported.
According to the report, the document compares a scenario in which coronavirus spreads as it will, while routines continue uninterrupted, with a scenario in which a month-long lockdown is imposed, followed by additional measures intended to stop the spread of coronavirus.
The document estimates that the mortality rate in the first scenario would be 0.15%, while in the second scenario it would be 0.125%. Both of these figures are not significantly different than those for seasonal influenza.
However, it is not clear how the Data and Analytics team calculated the figures, or whether they are backed by science.
Currently, the World Health Organization estimates that coronavirus has a fatality rate of 3.4% globally. However, various countries have shown widely differing fatality rates, influenced in part by the number of tests conducted, by which asymptomatic carriers may be detected.