Why do you think that the under-reported recoveries are included in the "Closed Cases" category and not the "Active Cases" category? I would think that a closed case would only have one of two outcomes; either the patient survived, or the patient died, and you wouldn't include cases where you didn't know the outcome.
And I'm using a 2% fatality rate in my estimates because that appears to be about half of what we're seeing in the Western world, and I want to give conservative estimates of pending fatalities so nobody can accuse me of reckless fear-mongering.
No it's clearly much more lethal than the flu - even the most wildly optimistic estimates point to a virus that's 10 times more lethal than the flu.
And this thing is spreading exponentially, so the numbers that we're seeing now are only the tip of a much larger iceberg. Here in the US there's been no sign of this trend slowing.
Do the math yourself - it's simple. The US population is just over 327 million. The lower estimate for the percentage of infected is 50% - that means 163.5 Americans will become infected. At a 2% fatality rate (which is about half of what we're seeing), that's 3.27 million Americans dead by the time this thing plays out.
Likewise, the global population is 7.8 billion people. At a 50% infection rate that's 3.9 billion infected people world-wide. At a 2% fatality rate that's 78 million dead.
Even if by some unimaginable miracle we can cut this fatality rate down by 80%, to a .4% fatality rate, that leaves 15.6 million people dead before this is over.
I've been advocating to a total global lock-down from the beginning of this thing because we know that the fatality rate doubles (or more) when hospitals get overwhelmed and they run out of ventilators.
So in the US, we have about 180,000 ventilators. If this thing continues on the current trajectory, we're looking at about 12 million Americans needing ventilators over the next 2-4 months, and we can expect at least 6.54 million Americans dead instead of 3.27 million dead because most major hospitals will be overwhelmed within a week or two (and many of them already are).
I hate the idea of being locked down - I like my freedom. But if we can save 3.27 million lives by doing it, then to hell with my freedom for a few months: this is about saving millions of lives.
Anyway, those are the numbers. I'm not fearmongering; I'm sharing the best available facts that I can, and explaining what they mean. If anyone wants to disagree with me, fine - show me more credible facts and let's run the numbers again.
But don't tell me that this virus is no worse that the seasonal flu just because it hasn't claimed millions of lives yet. Because this is a very calculation and the inevitability of the scale of this disaster looks to be about as certain as the Sun rising tomorrow. Unless the aliens land on the White House lawn and hand us a vaccine for this thing - and we all know that's not going to happen.
I have full faith that before this virus claims millions of lives we will have a vaccine though. That's the thing, To give it time to claim millions of lives,, Which I admit, In third world countries, It may, even this year. But, People are doing their numbers all wrongly on this, They are estimating numbers without account for any defense, There are several defenses we will have,
Defense one, Some people on planet earth already have immunities built up against this, Yes they call it novel, But Those who have already recovered, do have some small amount of immunity. I question, Why we can't study those people who have recovered and attempt to get antibodies from those people?
Defense two, We will eventually have a vaccine, So, Yes, doing the numbers in this way, By the time it can take millions of lives there will be a vaccine, Look at the numbers it's claimed so far, For it to claim millions of lives exponentially, It's going to take time, You speak truly when you say there is no cure for viruses, But there are vaccines. A vaccine will come in time, I promise.
Defense 3, Heard immunity, As more people recover and build immunity to this virus, They will not be active spreaders. The Virus won't always spread like wildfire. from person to person. A person who has good immunity to this, won't be contagious as long as others. eventually no matter how one slices it the spread will slow brother.
This virus is fighting us. But We are fighting it, In a myriad of ways. The human immune system Will fight back. Eventually, This Coronavirus will be nothing more than serious flu.
It spreads like it does Because its novel, That won't be the case always and its spread will slow without question, without a doubt.
People worry about it mutating, But it hasn't yet, And if it doesn't then we will fully defeat this virus within five years.
I know people will question my logic, but if you think about it, My logic is very sound on this. This Coronavirus Will eventually pass. I promise. I know people are dying, That's the scary part, But we are fighting this thing And we will beat it.
