Covid Did NOT Reduce Life Expectancy by 1.5 Years – And the FDA Is No Friend in the Fight Against Covid

(Don Boudreaux)

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David Colander explains, in today’s Wall Street Journal, that the much-ballyhooed statistic released last week by the CDC – the one that claims to show that Covid-19 reduced life expectancy for American new-borns in 2020 by a whopping 1.5 years – is “fake news.” Here’s the key paragraph:

The figure the CDC reported last week is known as “period life expectancy.” It measures the average length of time a hypothetical American who, from birth to death, is exposed to the mortality rates observed in the current period. That means the 2020 statistic assumes that Covid will be killing people forever at the same rate as it did last year—an implausible scenario.

Also in today’s Wall Street Journal, David Henderson and Charley Hooper rightly criticize the FDA for denigrating Ivermectin. A slice:

Ivermectin fights 21 viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, the cause of Covid-19. A single dose reduced the viral load of SARS-CoV-2 in cells by 99.8% in 24 hours and 99.98% in 48 hours, according to a June 2020 study published in the journal Antiviral Research.

Some 70 clinical trials are evaluating the use of ivermectin for treating Covid-19. The statistically significant evidence suggests that it is safe and works for both treating and preventing the disease.