Your task is to predict the verdict of a claim based on the provided question-answer pair evidence. The possible labels are: 'Supported', 'Refuted', 'Not Enough Evidence', 'Conflicting Evidence/Cherrypicking'. Justify your answer using the provided evidence and select the correct label.

Claim: The World Health Organization's director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, overstated the COVID-19 fatality rate.

Q1: Is the COVID-19 fatality rate in 2020 overstated by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus ?
A1: The fatality rate of the coronavirus was based on current data available of known positive cases and known deaths.
Oftentimes estimates have to be made because data is just not yet available. The Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, used the fatality rate of coronavirus with known numbers and used this as his prediction of eventual mortality rate.  This was a faulty assumption.  Estimates usually involve obtaining information that is available and making estimates on what is not. We cannot tell the future but we can make educated guesses based on information available. This is what has been done with the coronavirus because this type of virus has apparently never been seen before.

2. Sometimes estimates are reasonable and sometimes they are wrong, and even way off.
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The point is that whenever estimates are made of large unknown values they are always wrong because no one can tell the future. Sometimes estimates end up close and sometimes they are not and sometimes they are way off.

3. The current “estimate” for the coronavirus fatality rate according to the WHO is about 3.4%.
The estimate used most often is from the WHO based on the Director General’s comments.  The WHO estimates the mortality rate of the coronavirus to be around 3.4%:

The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated the mortality rate from Covid-19 is about 3.4%. That is higher than seasonal flu and is cause for concern – but even if it is correct, more than 96% of people who become infected with the coronavirus will recover.

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4. The same rate for this year’s seasonal flu is 10% if you use known cases and known deaths (but the media tells you it’s .1%).
As The Gateway Pundit reported earlier, according to CDC numbers, in the US in the 2019-2020 flu season, there were 222,552 confirmed cases of the flu from testing and an estimated 36 million flu cases in the United States

Q2: What is the COVID-19 fatality rate in 2020 ?
A2: Healthcare
Visualizing the History of Pandemics

Published 3 years ago

on March 14, 2020

By Nicholas LePan
Graphics/Design:

    Harrison Schell

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The History of Pandemics

Pan·dem·ic /panˈdemik/ (of a disease) prevalent over a whole country or the world.

As humans have spread across the world, so have infectious diseases. Even in this modern era, outbreaks are nearly constant, though not every outbreak reaches pandemic level as COVID-19 has.

Today’s visualization outlines some of history’s most deadly pandemics, from the Antonine Plague to the current COVID-19 event.
A Timeline of Historical Pandemics

Disease and illnesses have plagued humanity since the earliest days, our mortal flaw. However, it was not until the marked shift to agrarian communities that the scale and spread of these diseases increased dramatically.

Widespread trade created new opportunities for human and animal interactions that sped up such epidemics. Malaria, tuberculosis, leprosy, influenza, smallpox, and others first appeared during these early years.

The more civilized humans became – with larger cities, more exotic trade routes, and increased contact with different populations of people, animals, and ecosystems – the more likely pandemics would occur.

Here are some of the major pandemics that have occurred over time:
Name	Time period	Type / Pre-human host	Death toll
Antonine Plague	165-180	Believed to be either smallpox or measles	5M
Japanese smallpox epidemic	735-737	Variola major virus	1M
Plague of Justinian	541-542	Yersinia pestis bacteria / Rats, fleas	30-50M
Black Death	1347-1351	Yersinia pestis bacteria / Rats, fleas	200M
New World Smallpox Outbreak	1520 – onwards	Variola major virus	56M
Great Plague of London	1665	Yersinia pestis bacteria / Rats, fleas	100,000
Italian plague	1629-1631	Yersinia pestis bacteria / Rats, fleas	1M
Cholera Pandemics 1-6	1817-1923	V. cholerae bacteria	1M+
Third Plague	1885	Yersinia pestis bacteria / Rats, fleas	12M (
user
justification: The method of estimating in this case was faulty, ad evidenced. The second answer does not seem to answer the second question. 

verdict: 'Supported'
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