Covid-19 by the numbers

[kewlJ]

I suspect your analysis is way off. We don't have to depend on clearly skewed data that doesn't account for a huge number of mild cases. We have a perfect data laboratory where we know the exact number of cases vs number of deaths: The Diamond Princess cruise ship. Every passenger was tested. The number of positives vs deaths was statistically significant with a 95 percent confidence. Based up the model developed to analyse this data, the death rate when applied to the China demographic is closer to .5%. Still far more deadly than the flu, but nowhere near your apoplectic prediction.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...773v2.full.pdf

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/...hip-death-rate

Or you could listen to Admiral Brett Giroir MD,a four-star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, who currently serves as the Assistant Secretary for Health.

http://www.rfi.fr/en/wires/20200305-...ent-or-less-us

"The best estimates now of the overall mortality rate for COVID-19 is somewhere between 0.1 percent and one percent,"

"That's lower than you heard probably in many reports, why is this? Number one is because many people don't get sick and don't get tested -- this reflects the overseas experience -- so probably for every case, there are at least two or three cases that are not in that denominator.

"It certainly could be higher than normal flu, it probably is, but it's not likely in the range of two to three percent."

First let me say, I hope my analysis is way off. I am not hoping for worse case scenario, just preparing for it.

As for the Princess Diamond "laboratory experiment", yes that is a good experiment and those numbers are more encouraging, although still incomplete and a small sample size and as those of us that deal with simulations for our gambling livelihood can attest, a small sample size is never a good thing. It often produces results that are skewed and later rendered insignificant. The data and story you quoted from ScienceNews was as of March 12. At that time of the 697 that tested positive, 6 had died, hence the slightly less than 1% death rate.

Since that story and data is now 6 days, going on 7 days old, I looked for any kind of updated information. The only thing I could find was a FoxNews Story, 1 day later on March 13. At that time a 7th person had died, putting the death rate just a hair above 1%. BUT, 15 people were still in ICU. Not to be looking for the worst, but that means likely the death rate will go higher. I mean this is a freaking new virus, and it appears it can take a while for people to get sick and even longer for people to get well, as evident by 15 STILL in ICU almost 30 days after testing positive. So until those 15 people either recover or ??, the numbers could and likely will go up from that small sample size. I guess still encouraging. 1-2% (or even 3% should most of the remaining ICU patients die) is better than 9%. (but still 10 to 30 times worse than the flu)