THE GEEZER FALLACY: What do the Covid9-19 Antibody Studies Mean? They yield vastly different fatality rates ranging from 0.05 percent in Iceland to 1.3 percent in northern Italy. Jacob Sullum analyzes the differences and says that some of the lower estimates look plausible. He also offers encouragement for the elderly from Alan Reynolds of Cato Institute, who notes that at least 99 percent of the people who died in New York City had underlying medical conditions.

“The absolutely critical and widely misunderstood point here is that ‘underlying conditions’ are THE only risk that virtually all fatal cases of COVID-19 had in common—not age,” Reynolds writes. “That misunderstanding arose because old people are far more likely to have one or more of these conditions (and because more old people die of this and almost every other fatal risk). But it’s about time to stop echoing the fallacy that this virus kills old people, rather than sick people.”

Good, because there are plenty of healthy old people.