The following may help you. It won’t help Fish Matters, because he’s a compulsive liar, but you at least appear to be genuinely confused by his continuous reference to “2.2 million deaths.” His repeated references to, and reliance on, the “2.2 million deaths” number is misleading and idiotic. He has deluded you into thinking 2.2 million death is some bedrock starting number from which every statistic and theory regarding Covid must flow, and if something doesn’t, then everything we know about even the basics of respiratory disease transmission between people is invalid.
Unfortunately, he posts such voluminous misleading arguments full of false premises, that it takes time to unravel them. But here goes. The fake “challenge” you assert -- “to go figure out how a .5% mortality rate could produce 2.2 million deaths with a population of 332 million” is meaningless. Your limited conclusion from it - “If the mortality rate is under .67% then it was never possible for there to be 2.2 million deaths, therefore social distancing is not the cause of there not being 2.2 million deaths” – is completely misleading in the much broader conclusion you are trying to make – that limiting person-to-person contact won’t limit person-to-person transmission of a respiratory disease. By itself, that broader conclusion defies basic common sense, and probably the known laws of the universe. When co-mingled with fake premises regarding “2.2 million deaths,” it’s demented and deliberately misleading.
The “2.2 million deaths” that your fathead friend never stops mentioning, despite its very limited and faded relevance, appears to have come from the Imperial College Model. The Imperial Model projected 2.2 million deaths in the U.S. with the following assumptions: (1) NO mitigation of any kind – no social distancing, no school closings, etc., (2) a relatively high Reproduction number R0 of 2.6, and (3) an infection fatality rate (IFR) of 0.9%. 2.2 million deaths is the Imperial Models’ worst case projection. The Imperial Model ALSO models a R0 of 2.0 and appears to project 1.6 million death in the U.S. from that R0, using the 0.9% IFR. (By the way, the Imperial Model also appears to project deaths as low as 104,000 in the U.S. with an R0 of 2.0, an IFR of 0.9% and certain social distancing restrictions.)
When President Trump says that his national lockdown strategies “prevented 2.2 million deaths,” as he has done on several occasions, it appears he is also referring to the worst case prediction from the Imperial Model. While that is a questionable thing for Trump to do, it’s vague enough to not be completely misleading by itself, and it makes political sense for him to keep repeating it. It make NO sense, however, for FM to keep using that 2.2 million number as some kind of fixed base for all other theories and calculations he pretends should be made (and has deluded you into thinking should be made).
Again, the “2.2 million deaths” is one of many prediction from a model, using specific inputs (and again, they are an IFR of 0.9% and R0 of 2.6). If you want to model OTHER inputs, like an IFR of 0.66%, then you can do that. If you want to use an IFR of 0.66% using the Imperial Model, I GUARANTEE you will get a projected death number that is mathematically possible within the U.S. population.
It’s illogical and misleading, however, to use the 2.2. million projection that is derived from some inputs you DIDN’T USE (IFR of 0.9% and R0 of 2.6), and then think you are making ANY kind of valid argument whatsoever by “showing” you can’t work BACKWARDS from 2.2 million to arrive at DIFFERENT inputs like an IFR of 0.66% (and whatever R0 you guys think Covid has). That is not how algebra and math works.
For example, using YOUR input of an IFR of 0.66% and a R0 of 2.0, you’ll get a projection south of the projected 1.6 million deaths (mentioned above, using 0.9% IRF) -- probably around 1 to 1.1 million. Plug 1.1 million into your post above and consider whether you would still make that post using that number. Again, 1.1 million would be the projected deaths using YOUR input of 0.66% IFR. Can you say “If the mortality rate is under .67% then it was never possible for there to be 1.1 million deaths, therefore social distancing is not the cause of there not being 1.1 million deaths”? You can’t, because the premise is false. (1,100,000 death divided by 0.0067 rate = 166,666,667 million infected, well under U.S. population). Your whole misleading, contrived, fake conclusion about social distancing evaporates, just on the number change.
Hopefully you are clued in by now. What your fathead friend tried to do, and what you fell for is this: taking a mathematical impossibility he conjured up from a number (2.2 million) he heard someone use in a completely different context, and then leverage it to say that, because of the mathematical impossibility, everything else must be false and invalid.
Here is another way of thinking about your misleading conclusion of “If the mortality rate is under .67% then it was never possible for there to be 2.2 million deaths, therefore social distancing is not the cause of there not being 2.2 million deaths.” If you were talking about that SPECIFIC number – namely 2,200,000 deaths on the head, no one cares or disputes it. But if you are saying that conclusion about social distancing broadly applies to every other possible number projected by the Model, like FOR EXAMPLE the 1.1 million projected deaths that YOU would get using YOUR 0.66% IFR, then your conclusion is FALSE on its face.
In summary, this statement by you: “If the mortality rate is under .67% then it was never possible for there to be 2.2 million deaths, therefore social distancing is not the cause of there not being 2.2 million deaths” is at best completely irrelevant, and at worst is misleading and idiotic, and made you look foolish.