CDC Pandemic Planning Scenarios: Fatality “Estimates”: .00003%, .0002%, .005%

This title is inaccurate, and a bit misleading.

For starters, the numbers presented are ratios, so the ".00003%" should be "0.003%".

The numbers are sourced from the age groups 0-19, 20-49, and 50-69 for Scenario 5, "Current Best Estimate". (Table 1) The article and Table description repeatedly states these "are not predictions or estimates of the expected impact of COVID-19."

Looking at fatalities alone, these scenarios see at worst 1/10000 deaths for ages 0-19, 1/3333 for ages 20-49, 1/100 for ages 50-69, and 1/10.8 for ages 70+. But again, these are not predictions of the expected effects of COVID-19.

(And a note to future readers: "The parameter values in each scenario will be updated and augmented over time, as we learn more about the epidemiology of COVID-19." The numbers on this page will change over time. As of this post, the article was last updated September 10th.)