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In a viral YouTube video that many people on social media are using to argue that lockdowns were unnecessary and costly, a California osteopath named Daniel Erickson claims that the coronavirus isn’t as dangerous as the seasonal flu. He bases this assertion on testing data from his own chain of urgent care clinics. However, this claim is not only misleading but fundamentally flawed.
The video, which was later removed by YouTube, has since been criticized by medical organizations like the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM), who called it inaccurate and financially motivated. Despite its removal, the misinformation it spread continues to circulate online, making it important to understand why Erickson’s argument doesn’t hold up.
Erickson, while technically a physician, is not an infectious disease specialist or epidemiologist. His lack of expertise in these areas is evident in the way he misinterprets key public health metrics. The central issue in his video is a major misunderstanding: he confuses test positivity rates with actual community infection rates.
Test positivity rate refers to the percentage of tests that come back positive among those who are tested. But this is not the same as the attack rate, which measures how many people in the entire population have been infected. Erickson incorrectly assumes that because 12% of people tested in California tested positive, 12% of the population has had the virus — a conclusion that is simply not supported by the data.
This mistake is similar to estimating how many people in a city are Catholic by only asking people at a church service, or determining how many people struggle with alcoholism by looking at attendees of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. In both cases, the sample is not representative of the whole population.
Erickson repeats this error with data from New York, the U.S., Sweden, and Norway, suggesting that the virus is less deadly than the flu. But the facts tell a different story. The case fatality rate (CFR) for the seasonal flu is around 0.1%, while in New York City alone, over 0.2% of the population has died from COVID-19. Even if we consider only those who have tested positive, the number is still much higher than the flu’s fatality rate.
Moreover, the real death toll could be even higher as more people get infected and more data becomes available. The virus is still spreading, and the full impact of the pandemic is yet to be seen.
It's crucial to critically evaluate the information we see online, especially when it comes from sources without proper scientific or medical credentials. If you come across this kind of content, share this article with others so they can also understand why these claims are wrong.
Stay informed, stay skeptical, and always look for evidence-based information.