Item — HN Reader

I don't know where these numbers come from. But given a the current 1.1% case-fatality-rate in America (even before hospitals are overwhelmed) and that more than half of the population is estimated to get it, I don't see how it'd be less than 1% * .5 * 350million = 1.75 million people, with or without lockdown.

I suspect politicians are trying to "ease into" the honest numbers, because I guess "a million" sounds like a lot to people.

It's hard to say anything with certainty, but I personally can't find any math that explains how social distancing can reduce that by more than 10%, short of a cure or vaccine being developed within 60 days.

Plasma would be the best hope of this.

2 comments

I have seen a few seriously sourced articles discussing the possibility of various forms of airborne transmission during certain stages of certain strains. If stuff like this is the reality then the truth is that social distancing can't be as effective as we'd like, even on top of whatever inherent flaws it has, but it's probably still the best/only advice that can actually be given, taking our woeful preparedness into account. Masks probably should have been the recommendation from day 1 but clearly economic priorities and lack of skilled preparation and leadership overruled longer term judgment.

It seems to me some are expecting business as usual to resume quickly because under normal circumstances, where the heads of each department hadn't been chosen for their desire to shut it down ASAP, that is probably more what would happen, but the reality of today's government is vastly different. I completely agree they're trying to slow roll the actual truth here.

Your CFR is with respect to diagnosed cases. Many cases are mild and have no symptoms. The real CFR is likely an order of magnitude lower.

That's one theory, but the evidence is mixed. For example, I believe in cruise ships, where everybody was tested the CFR was ~ 3%. However maybe the age distribution was older.

There are a lot of factors, some cause underestimating of cfr (he died of pneumonia, didn't have a test to spare, cause of death pneumonia).