Biden Called Out for Falsely Claiming Delta Variant Is 'Deadlier' Than Previous Strains

President Joe Biden falsely claimed that the delta COVID-19 variant gaining steam worldwide was "deadlier" than previous strains in a Thursday tweet accompanied by a video of White House coronavirus task force member Dr. Anthony Fauci encouraging viewers to get vaccinated.

"Here’s the deal: The Delta variant is more contagious, it’s deadlier, and it’s spreading quickly around the world – leaving young, unvaccinated people more vulnerable than ever," Biden said. "Please, get vaccinated if you haven’t already. Let’s head off this strain before it’s too late."

Here’s the deal: The Delta variant is more contagious, it’s deadlier, and it’s spreading quickly around the world – leaving young, unvaccinated people more vulnerable than ever. Please, get vaccinated if you haven’t already. Let’s head off this strain before it’s too late. pic.twitter.com/9gBeRpvCe8
— President Biden (@POTUS) June 24, 2021

The scarients are, of course, Team Apocalypse's go-to play now that America is getting back to normal. Even as one recedes, the next one is always out there, lurking, waiting to pounce, overwhelm hospitals, and stack up dead bodies in the streets if people refuse to obey the orders of hallowed public health officials.

Fauci recently called delta the "greatest threat" in the U.S., and the ongoing narrative is that kids and unvaccinated, mostly young people are prone to a potentially deadly date with delta. But even if it's more transmissible, is it really "deadlier"? Younger people haven't, after all, been at any statistical risk with any of the previous versions of COVID-19.

As you can see, the Delta variant has a 0.1% case fatality rate (CFR) out of 31,132 Delta sequence infections confirmed by investigators. That is the same rate as the flu and is much lower than the CFR for the ancestral strain or any of the other variants. And as we know, the CFR is always higher than the infection fatality rate (IFR), because many of the mildest and asymptomatic infections go undocumented, while the confirmed cases tend to have a bias toward those who are more evidently symptomatic.

In other words, Delta is literally the flu with a CFR identical to it. This is exactly what every respiratory pandemic has done through history: morphed into more transmissible and less virulent form that forces the other mutations out since you get that one. Nothing about masks, lockdowns, or experimental shots did this. To the extent this really is more transmissible, it's going to be less deadly, as is the case with the common cold. To the extent that there are areas below the herd immunity threshold (for example, in Scotland and the northwestern parts of the U.K.) they will likely get the Delta variant (until something else supplants it), but fatalities will continue to go down.

Should we be worried about this one, folks?

#DeltaVariant causes symptoms “like a cold or hayfever.” Evidently. Which of course means everything, especially schools, have to close at once. https://t.co/ogMKWuzEnw
— Philip Holloway ?? (@PhilHollowayEsq) June 24, 2021

Meh, probably not. So yeah, it's just more panic porn.

While Delta has clearly led to an increase in hospitalizations in the UK, the good news is that their length is decreasing, likely d/t younger patients
by @nicfreeman1209 h/t @JamesWard73 /2https://t.co/n6qD1fldqE pic.twitter.com/i2vjDilvz8
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) June 20, 2021

I'll leave you with several Twitter users who called Biden out on his false claim. Don't wait for a misinformation tag from Twitter though, because hell will freeze over first.

Can you point to evidence that it's more contagious and deadlier? More contagious viruses (and I think you mean infectious) tend to be much less deadly. Deadly viruses kill their hosts, reducing spread. So point to the evidence. Because I suspect this is flagrant misinformation
— Jeffrey Peel (@JeffreyPeel) June 24, 2021

Fear. Fear... More scariants. Boo! Hard to believe there are people who still listen to Fauci the fraud. Even harder to believe that some people haven’t left the house in a year.
— Matthew Loop (@matthewloop) June 24, 2021

More contagious AND deadlier?

According to what data? https://t.co/qm2dR16aoy pic.twitter.com/MhGv6tmSsF
— Hold2 (@Hold2LLC) June 24, 2021

"Covid is … acting differently now, it’s more like a bad cold...People might think they’ve just got some sort of seasonal cold"

Shouldn't this be good news? Aren't viruses evolutionarily incentivized to become more contagious but also less deadly?https://t.co/BetGCx97Fx
— Eric (@The_OtherET) June 24, 2021

He deleted his tweet last night and basically reposted it with Fauci. Couple pts:

It is not both more contagious and more virulent. Also, it is too late. This variant will "take hold" then another variant will "take hold" and so on and so on. This is panic porn and untrue. https://t.co/583s7cc9P7
— District AI (@districtai) June 24, 2021