Quote Originally Posted by Dawgology View Post
If you go to the hospital and visit the burn unit to do a study on how dangerous fire is you would probably come to the assumption that fire is one of the most dangerous things out there and we should not use anything that contains fire. Why? Because out of everyone that was severly burned by fire at leasy 50% are hospitalized and about 10% die. Therefore, fire has a 10% death rate. Now, we know (assume) that thousands of people burn themselves slightly every day (hot skillet, candles, being dumb, etc.) but the vast majority of them don't visit a doctor for it. It's not worth it.

It's much the same way with the Corona Virus. Our denominator in this equation is pre-loaded. This is why the annual mortality rate for the flu is so low because CDC assumes (and rightly so) that 80%-90% of people that have the flu don't actually go to the doctor. If you look at the CDC's seasonal flu numbers from last year (again they are just assuming numbers) then you will see that flu hospitilization carries with it a 7% mortality rate. That's right. 7% mortality rate. Now...when you factor in their assumption that approximately 35.5 million people have the flu every year that mortality rate drops tremendously (to around .5%)

There is a lot of research out there suggesting that the number of corona viruses cases are 10x's greater than reported...conservatively. This number is derived from reported R0 values and reported growth rates of the virus and assuming a Nov. 1 patient zero date. This is the same estimates that the CDC uses to derive annual influenza numbers. This estimation would leave the Corona Virus death rate at approximately .5%.

That's not to say this virus isn't dangerous...it VERY much is. Primarily because there is no herd immunity or vaccine yet. It will spread quickly until herd immunity is achieved and then it will go away for a year or two until it mutates sufficiently to bypass the antibodies it produced initially. Hopefully there is a vaccine by then.
This guy gets it. Well said and something I've heard echoed over the last 2 weeks by doctors and healthcare officials that I do business with.