The U.S. CDC has been sounding the alarm bell on the Delta variant of the Chinese coronavirus, and in an internal document which was gotten by The Washington Post, claims the variant is “as transmissible as Chickenpox.”
According to left-leaning NPR, this statement is not true.
“Chickenpox is among the most contagious viruses possible. Each person can spread it to as many as ‘90% of the individuals close to him or her,’” says NPR’s fact-check. “Is the delta variant this contagious? No,” according to an expert that NPR interviewed.
The CDC Said The Delta Variant Is As Contagious As Chickenpox. That's Not Accurate https://t.co/1qo1q53cib
— NPR Health News (@NPRHealth) August 11, 2021
Biostatistician Tom Wenseleers from the University of Belgium explains that “when researchers measure the transmissibility of a virus, they often use that is called an ‘R nought’ which is abbreviated as R0. It is the amount of people a sick person will transmit the virus to.”
“Chickenpox has an R0 of around 9 or 10. So every person with chickenpox spreads the virus to around 10 other people usually,” Wenseleers said to NPR, adding that “outbreaks can be explosive.”
“For the delta coronavirus variant, the R0 is calculated to be around six and seven,” he said. “So it is two- to three-times as contagious as the original covid-19 (which had an R0 of 2 to 3) but not as contagious as chickenpox (with an R0 of around 9 to 10).”
When NPR commented about the CDC document’s inaccurate number that made Delta look more fearsome, a federal official said that “the leaked document overestimated the R0 for delta and underestimated the R0 for chickenpox.”
“In the end, this delta variant is a lot more transmissible than the original variant. That’s the message Americans must take from this,” the official said, apparently attempting to brush away the fact that the CDC was caught supporting inaccurate information about an infectious diseases. Again.
This is the sort of thing that proves Americans cannot trust the federal agencies which are expected to keep us safe. Given that they are the experts on infectious diseases, the idea that the CDC did not know what they were doing is ridiculous.
Author: Steven Sinclaire
