Letter to the editor: Covid-19 numbers don't add up

I don’t pretend to be a statistician, and I understand the numbers I’m using are just raw data, but I’m concerned about the numbers being discussed during the covid-19 White House and state briefings.

With our country having only 4% of the world’s population, we have 31% of the confirmed cases and 23% of the deaths.

With a worldwide infection rate of less than 0.003%, the numbers don’t add up. We are experiencing an infection rate of over seven times the world average!

If our rates followed the averages, we would be at less that 100,000 confirmed cases and less than 6,500 deaths. Even if my numbers are off by a factor of 4, the claimed numbers don’t make sense.

This country lost 22 million jobs and untold billions of dollars in productivity over the past six weeks. I’m not minimizing any loss of life, but I’m questioning government’s rescinding constitutional rights, shutting down businesses and restricting freedoms based on their statistics that really don’t make sense.

Eric Odinski

Oakmont