WHO, CDC and Wikipedia revisionism FTW :D

How to make COVID-19 look "much worse" than the Spanish flu, with a little 
Wikipedia revisionism:

  Wikipedia Slashes Spanish Flu Death Rate
  
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/wikipedia-slashes-spanish-flu-death-rate
  https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/09/wikipedia-slashes-spanish-flu-death-rate/

    ... The trouble with that is the higher range of this [REVISIONIST] 
estimate (50 million as 2% of total cases) gives a figure of 2.5 billion total 
cases. Which is higher than the entire population of the world at the time! 
(1.8 billion).

    So something is clearly amiss.

    Worse still, the WHO is the only source we have found so far that claims a 
death toll of 20 million. Most sources, such as the CDC (and see here), broadly 
agree that between 50 million and 100 million people died of the Spanish Flu 
(although one recent study wildly differs, see below). In order for 50-100 
million deaths to be 2-3% of total cases there would have had to be 2.5 billion 
– 5 billion cases.

    Obviously totally impossible.

    Clearly there is something wrong with that newly revised figure of 2-3%. 
The only way to make it work is to also dramatically revise downward the number 
of deaths. And indeed there’s evidence of editors trying to do that on Wiki 
with someone citing a December 2018 study
    
https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/187/12/2561/5092383/7/1404/5368300?redirectedFrom=fulltext
    which used a controversial
    
https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-abstract/188/7/1404/5368300?redirectedFrom=fulltext
    “new methodology” to establish a mortality figure of just 17 million. Given 
that this number has previously been estimated for India alone, this is 
remarkable revisionism.

    ... Why the sudden decision to vastly downgrade the estimated CFR for the 
1918 pandemic and source to a rather obscure WHO article that doesn’t even 
focus on that issue? And, more importantly, why does this extreme downgrade 
still exist on the page even when editors are pointing out the impossibility of 
the figures?
    
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spanish_flu&offset=&limit=500&action=history

    At least this new editorial policy by Wiki is well-timed for those looking 
to stoke fear, and unfortunate for those trying to bring reason to bear. It 
allows the media and others to cite the newly downgraded 2-3% CFR as evidence 
that COVID19 is as dangerous as, or more dangerous than, the Spanish Flu and 
will end up killing millions. That’s some nice clickbait right there.

    ...

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