Health authorities in the US and around the world are “flying in the dark” when it comes to making wise public policy decisions in response to COVID-19, according to Stanford University’s Professor Jay Bhattacharya. Researchers are scrambling to understand the how widespread and how deadly the novel pathogen is, despite the disease being declared a pandemic months ago.
Professor Jay Bhattacharya wrote an article last month questioning whether health authorities are over-estimating COVID-19’s mortality rate.
He told Sky News governments will be able to make better policy decisions if they knew how truly dangerous the disease is.
“What I anticipate is that the disease is probably more widespread than we think, that is many-many people have had it with very limited symptoms,” he said.
“Well that means the death toll of the virus is by orders of magnitude lower than we think, nowhere near the three per cent WHO originally said.
“Much lower, maybe more in line with the deathrate from the flu.”
He said once researchers gain a greater insight into the infection rate, it could allow governments to gradually ease restrictions while protecting communities that are at an elevated risk from COVID-19.
Image: AP
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