RUSH: Now, I came under some criticism — friendly criticism — from a caller yesterday claiming that my recitation of the coronavirus mortality rate at 2%, “Rush, that’s a big deal. You make it sound like it’s not a big deal.” Well, let me explain what the 2% is 2% of. The mortality rate of 2% for people coronavirus is 2% of the people who contract it. It means that 98% of the people who get it recover from it. The mortality rate for SARS was 10%. The mortality rate for MERS was 34%. “Well, wait a minute, Rush. You said the flu’s survival rate was 0.1%.”

Yeah, because that was of the whole population. When you talk about the flu, 30 to 60,000 people die from it a year, it’s about 30,000 — the range is 30 to 60,000, depending on the years you’re talking about. That is one-tenth of 1% of the population the whole country, not of the people who get the disease. There’s a confusion here over the fatality rate and what the universe is. In talking about the 2% mortality rate for the coronavirus, that’s only the people who get it — and it’s low compared to other diseases like SARS or MERS.

The world survived both of those. It’s much lower than Ebola. (chuckles) You get Ebola, and your survival rate is in the single digits. So 98% of people who get coronavirus survive it. It is just within the universe of people that get the disease is what these numbers are, not of the… If it were expressed as a percentage of the whole population, it would be as low as the reported numbers of people who succumb to the flu. But the number 2% has been used here only within the universe of people who get the disease, which is what’s interesting to people now, given that the disease is new and just popping up all over the place.

Okay. Back to the phones. Richard, Fort Angeles, Washington, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hi.

CALLER: Dittos, Rush. My question is: Should President Trump ask for more money to secure the southern border to prevent the spread of the virus now?

RUSH: You’re basing this on the press conference yesterday where the president said, “Hey, the Democrats claim we’re not spending enough money. We’ll take all they want to give us”? Is that what you think, and maybe ask for more now even for the southern border since they’re so willing to give it for coronavirus?

CALLER: Right. You know, he’s being criticized for not doing enough, so now’s the time to say, “Hey, we’re gonna take care of this for sure and prevent it, and preemptive strike to help the United States.”

RUSH: See, the interesting point about this is one that I made yesterday. The Democrats don’t want to close the border. They don’t want to close the border. I’ll tell you, there has to be some concern. You know, wait ’til cases of coronavirus start popping up in Central America and in Mexico. It’s gonna happen, the odds are. Some already have. But wait ’til they happen in quantity, and then the United States southern border being open or accessible is gonna be a factor. Yeah, I think president should toy with the Democrats on this. Say, “If you guys are so willing to throw money at the coronavirus, well, let’s shore up the southern border.” I’d put ’em on the spot. Absolutely.

Bruce in Philadelphia. Great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. This is an honor. Let me get straight to my point. If this coronavirus gets into the homeless population with the kind of living conditions there and the proximity of all these people, it will spread like wildfire in these Democrat-run cities.

RUSH: (laughing) Oh, I love people who are trying to return political fire on this. Look… I mean, that’s a valid point because in the homeless population of Los Angeles there are diseases we have cured popping up, like hepatitis, Hepatitis B, some other things that we have cured are beginning to pop up in the homeless population Los Angeles. If this were to hit there and start spreading like wildfire, yeah, that would be a concern. The Zika, by the way…

The Zika fatality rate was 8.3%. Remember they were spraying everywhere for mosquitoes, and everybody panicked over the Zika, the Zika scare? That mortality rate — fatality rate — was 8.3%. You can find a lot of diseases. When you talk about the mortality rate expressed as a percentage of the people who get it, not of the whole population, the coronavirus is at the low end. Now, that’s not designed to make anybody feel any better. We’re just trying to keep things in perspective here, folks, under the belief that it makes no sense, that it isn’t productive for anybody to panic.

You know who’s probably panicking out there?

You know, the Millennial population of this country has been so trained to think of the future as dystopian. Look at Millennial entertainment shows. Millennial entertainment shows are all about the end of the world and the suffering and the misery and the wanton, rampant disease — and now here comes the coronavirus. I’ll betcha the Millennial population is buying all this hook, line, and sinker and getting extremely panicked and pessimistic over it. You watch. I mean, I can see some evidence of it in the tech blogs that I read.

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RUSH: Jim in Johnson City, Tennessee. Hello, sir.

CALLER: Dittos, Rush. Question. How many people have been murdered in Chicago this year to date? And how many Americans have died in this country from the coronavirus to date?

RUSH: Ooh. Ooh. I think more people die in Chicago on a weekend than have the coronavirus, yeah.

CALLER: Yeah. Let’s try to fix what’s broken before we start jumping off a cliff over something that may not ever occur.

RUSH: Oh, but, sir, you’re not paying attention. The Drive-By Media’s assembled at U.S. Davis Medical Center in Sacramento ready to proclaim the apocalypse based on one patient they think has the disease, they can’t figure out how, except the CDC says it may have been from contact with anybody arriving back in the country. But they’re ignoring that and acting like it’s an act of God.