I may sound like a jerk but I do care and pay attention to this stuff. It's a hobby. I'm just get tired of people using Sweden as an example. I don't think it's a good example at all and plus, don't they have government healthcare?

The video guys own urgent care facilities and their business is suffering? Sorry. Welcome to the club. I'm just not buying that the data backs up their theory. Well, unless 'boomer remover' is the goal. Which, btw, is actually an argument I always use to make as a way to save SS and Medicare. I was being sarcastic.

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The real question I have (besides the best way to slowly open up our economy and keep our health networks from being overwhelmed and safe for the frontline folks) is the potential lethality of Covid-19.  The ER guys argue that it's similar to seasonal flu rates but the numbers they're using are really suspect.

We won't know true lethality unless the death numbers are accurate as well as knowing the total number of people infected.  Not sure which data is most accurate, but assuming the NYC antibody numbers are useful (about 20 percent infection rate) with population of 8.4 million and number of Covid deaths at about 12K, the lethality is about 0.7 percent, which is roughly 6 or 7 times more lethal than seasonal flu.  If we assume that rate for the whole US and that 100 million of us will eventually get infected before a vaccine, that'd mean about 700K deaths...can this be right? 

Even if the lethality is half that, that'd still mean 350K deaths....this is why I think we need to be very careful about opening up too quickly...can someone tell me my why my numbers are wrong?  I kinda hope I am wrong....

I'm just trying to understand if Covid-19 is worse than typical seasonal flu.  I think it is not just because it appears to spread much quicker but also that it is more lethal.  I used NYC antibody results because it seemed as good a data point as any as far as estimating total infections.  Not looking at immunity since we don't know if antibodies = immunity, temporary immunity or no immunity.  It is my understanding that the lethality of typical seasonal flu is around 0.1 percent.  I did not think that rate varied from state to state, but maybe it does? 

I would expect that subsequent waves of Covid-19 prior to a vaccine may lead to upwards of 100 million infections in the US population.  Could be a lot less if culturally we as a country keep adhering to social distancing, better hygiene, masks in public, etc as the economy opens up...

I can't get your link to work, Bill.

The number I look at is virus mortality rate (what I also call lethality since I'm not a doc).  So if I look at typical seasonal flu mortality, it seems to be around 0.1 percent give or take.  Although the number of infections can vary widely between states, urban vs rural, etc, the mortailty rate remains about 0.1 percent. 

Re New York and NYC, the mortality rate is about the same.  For NY state, the antibody tests showed about 2.7 million infections state wide, with about 16,500 deaths at that time.  That gives a mortality estimate of 0.6 percent compared to 0.7 percent for NYC, probably within the error range).  Both are 6 or 7 times the mortality rate of seasonal flu.  All of this assumes the antibody tests give a more or less reliable estimate of total infections at the time (which no one can say for sure).

I also hope we develop some immunity to Covid-19 provided we recover.  As Fauci says, once you get 60-70 percent of a population to have immunity, the virus becomes much easier to deal with with even without a vaccine.  I agree with you on the benefit of herd immunity in lieu of a vaccine being developed....but getting there could kill hundreds of thousands of us in the process if we're not careful...

BillConner wrote on Apr 27^th, 2020 at 11:01am:

Just out of curiosity, where did you get 50% from?
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