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Why is death/(death + recovered) silly? That's the only measure. Active cases have unknown resolution and are irrelevant until they resolve one way or the other.
Simple, fist, let's assume for a moment that the 'recovered' number is accurate. You can't count a person as recovered until they were tested positive. The positive test rate is dependent on the number of tests administered. In other words, the positive test rate for the overall population is likely significantly smaller than the positive test rate for the population actually being tested. Since the positive number is dependent on the overall test rate, it is unreliable to derive meaning (one can always get a number). Therefore basing any measure that requires a value that itself is based on an unreliable number will lead to unreliable results.
Like I said, the 'rate' that you're using has no reflection of reality outside of it just being a number.
Simple, fist, let's assume for a moment that the 'recovered' number is accurate. You can't count a person as recovered until they were tested positive. The positive test rate is dependent on the number of tests administered. In other words, the positive test rate for the overall population is likely significantly smaller than the positive test rate for the population actually being tested. Since the positive number is dependent on the overall test rate, it is unreliable to derive meaning (one can always get a number). Therefore basing any measure that requires a value that itself is based on an unreliable number will lead to unreliable results.
Like I said, the 'rate' that you're using has no reflection of reality outside of it just being a number.
Right, as I said the only reason it is so bad is because of our inept testing.
Would just have to couch it with, of the tested and resolved cases, 41% have died.
1% is not even the actual number its probably far lower. What we do not know is how many people got the virus and never got sick or never got sick enough to go in and get tested. Once those studies are done, a lot more people who have had their business ruined or their investment destroyed are going to be hopping mad.
Right, as I said the only reason it is so bad is because of our inept testing.
Would just have to couch it with, of the tested and resolved cases, 41% have died.
Actually it's not 'inept' testing that is the issue as simply throwing a bunch of kits out there would not in and of itself produce more accurate numbers (unless the number starts approaching the total population, which is not realistic as you'd have to continually test negatives since they can become positives at any point). A doctor would want to test everyone possible, an epidemiologist would want to test specific populations. Neither is inept, they just have different priorities.
Actually it's not 'inept' testing that is the issue as simply throwing a bunch of kits out there would not in and of itself produce more accurate numbers (unless the number starts approaching the total population, which is not realistic as you'd have to continually test negatives since they can become positives at any point). A doctor would want to test everyone possible, an epidemiologist would want to test specific populations. Neither is inept, they just have different priorities.
A very large percentage of Americans have one or more of the underlying conditions that make them susceptible to complications from Covid-19, though, and some of them don't even know it. Diabetes or pre-diabetes, hypertension, asthma, already being ill with another respiratory bug, using or having used certain medications such as corticosteroids or TNF inhibitors, pretty much any lung, heart, kidney or liver issue, etc. I've seen estimates that the potentially vulnerable population might be as much as a third of Americans.
So yeah, your odds are pretty good of doing fine with Covid-19 if you don't have any of the risk factors. But your odds of having a risk factor are, in the US, quite high. And the odds that you have someone vulnerable in your close circle or household are even higher, and just because you're probably fine doesn't mean you can't spread it to them, which is why it's important for even people without risk factors to participate in protective practices.
It seems at this juncture that approximately 1% of those who are infected succumb to the virus (RIP), and a study from Italy showed that 99.2% of those dying had at least one serious underlying condition. So, what is the percentage likelihood that a healthy adult would catch the disease and then succumb to it? Would it be 1% x .08%?
P.S. I was horrible with word problems in junior high and still would be. (I have other talents.)
Very unlikely. Probably somewhere between 1 in 100 (1%) and 1 in 1000 (O.1%).
I'm 69 and survived it at least once, maybe twice. Feb and March.
Can't save everyone. Everyone can't live forever.
Think what would happen to the planet if nobody dies. People have to die. That's just how it is. Life is death.
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