And the death rate just went down 1% in the last 48 hours. That's actually encouraging.
Please read my post again, a little slower.
The only way to measure the fatality rate of COVID is from the COVID cases that have been closed, when people have either recovered or died.
This is from Worldometer
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#news. It's not political. I swear.
View attachment 16900
The “closed” cases are not being reported at all in some places and understated largely in many others. The best estimate of the mortality rate of Covid 19 would be to divide the number of deaths caused by the virus (A) by the total number of infected (B).
Finding A
To get the total number of deaths you need to start with reported numbers and adjust up for undiagnosed and up/down for misdiagnosed. While there are some deaths that go unreported it seems likely a small # as most deaths involve a death certificate and cause determined by some authority (M.D or coroner etc). Misdiagnosed deaths are those where comorbidity (multiple health problems led to death) and erroneous determinations are involved. These numbers are likely high and tend to overstate the Covid 19 deaths due to the high # of deaths of elderly sick at same time a drop of reported deaths of other illnesses and the fiscal incentive to include any possible cases as Covid 19s for the providers. One can only use a best guess on this but imo probably 25% of reported deaths are NOT fairly called Covid 19 caused.
thus A = 80,000 approx
Finding B
The total # of covid 19 infections in the country is unknown although good estimates are possible and are critical to good decision making for everyone concerned. Why the CDC and NIH refuse to report this information is hard to say but certainly a political agenda involved. The total of positive tested patients plus all those who got infected but didnt get diagnosed or didnt even know it. This is a BIG # imo.
Several studies by reputable orgs have been offered with wide ranges of multipliers (10 to 65). I will use the middle of 37 as a best guestimate, although personally I think the number is much higher.
Thus B = 1.8 million + ( 37 x 1.8 million ) = 68.4 million.
Thus the estimated mortality rate across entire population is:
80,000 / 68,400,000 =
0.00117%.
The mortality for young healthy adults (college age) is virtually nil as most of 80,000 are in the plus age 35 groups.
To discuss closed cases required good data which we also dont have but can get a rough estimate by using a 21 day period for average duration of the illness (start of symptoms to end). This is kind of the quaratine duration and maybe higher than reality to be safe. Reported closed # s are nowhere close as agencies vary widely or dont bother at all.
Roughly 20,000 new reported cases daily for last 21 days = 420,000 currently infected x 37 unidentified = 15 million with the virus. But as time passes, it seems reasonable to expect the identification is getting better and of course the population is much more aware and millions more tests are done.
Closed (reported only) cases would therefore be approx 1.5 million. Using only reported data, the mortality would be 105,000 / 1,500,000 = 7%.
I would further suggest, however, that deaths for those in nursing & care home settings be excluded. In the process of opening up colleges and other areas of the economy, those most at risk of serious illness/death can remain isolated from the rest of society.