Quantifying mortality rates is more difficult than it seems. A recent Wall Street Journal article explains that the numbers often only tell part of the story because only a certain number of people who die from COVID-19 actually make it into the hospital or get tested. The piece explains that the fatality rate is likely much higher than reported and policy makers should be careful when making decisions based on these numbers.
Testing in the U.S. and California has been limited as well. Gov. Gavin Newsom even announced a task force that will focus on increasing testing capacity daily, according to the L.A. Times. That impacts what we see in mortality rates, and it’s often misleading. A group of researchers at UCLA is looking into different ways that mortality rates can be more clearly tracked and portrayed. Today on AirTalk, one of the research scientists from UCLA sits down with Larry to discuss their findings.
Guest:
Lucas Böttcher, research scientist at UCLA who’s been working with a group of researchers to model fatality rates for COVID-19