Letter to the editor: Covid-19 testing useless without follow-up

According to Wikipedia, in 2017, there were 143.3 million taxpayers in the United States. Last year, the IRS audited one out of every 220 taxpayers.

Everybody fears an IRS audit because auditors tend to find things that could cause you a hardship, such as a fine or jail time. Sometimes they find nothing.

Covid-19 tests are like audits. If you are above age 70 and have comorbidity, you could die. That is like jail time. If you develop flu-like symptoms, that is like a fine. If you are asymptomatic, that could mean you have natural immunity.

The point I am trying to make is that testing is useless if the follow-up is not reported. The more the IRS audits, the more it finds. The more covid-19 tests conducted, the more cases found. The key here is the survival rate. I suggest visiting the CDC sites and deciding for yourself if this pandemic is any worse than the flu.

The CDC’s covid-19 survival rate by age group is:

0-19 years — 99.997% (99,997 out of 100,000)

20-49 years — 99.98% (9,998 out of 10,000)

50-69 years — 99.5% (995 out of 1,000)

70+ years — 94.6% (946 out of 1,000)

The average expected life span in the U.S. is 78 years. As of May 7, 2020, the average age of a person who died from covid-19 was 75.

Draw your own conclusions.

George Silowash

Penn Township, Westmoreland County