Let's talk numbers. And don't worry - I do the math so you don't have to!
When it comes to the coronavirus, there are two death rates we have to consider. The first is, obviously, the number of deaths among people who become infected with the disease. The message we keep getting from the media and government/health officials is that if you get the disease you can die. Well...yeah...you could...but how big of a chance is that?
The second is the number of deaths as a percentage of the total population (e.g. country, state, county or city). These two numbers are related in a very real way.
But here’s the problem: A very large number of people who contract COVID-19 will never know it because they either have no symptoms whatsoever ("asymptomatic"), or the symptoms were so mild that they assumed it was “just the flu” and didn’t go to the doctor. And without testing everybody in the country for COVID-19 antibodies, we’ll never know just how widespread the disease is. And testing everyone is just not going to happen.
Oh sure, you can test a sample of the population and extrapolate from there, and that’s fine. But the number you come up with may not be representative of every demographic group in every city or state. And that number cannot predict how many people will ultimately come down with the disease. As it turns out, according to three studies that have been performed, the percentage of people who’ve already contracted the coronavirus but were asymptomatic varies widely – like from 25X more to 80X more! As they say, your mileage may vary...
Take California. Governor Newsom may want to claim that the fairly extreme measures he imposed for his 39,500,000 residents concerning self-isolation and social-distancing have produced numbers far below those of other states. But have they? Let's look at that. To be exact, California has 39,254 confirmed cases of COVID-19, and they’ve had 1,562 deaths.
Two separate studies done in California determined that the "39,254" number might need to be multiplied 35 to 85 times to be accurate. Let’s split the difference and multiply by 50. That would give California an actual infection rate of 1,962,000 people…round it off to 2 million. Okay, the number of deaths doesn’t change. So if we divide the number of deaths by the number of actual COVID-19 cases, we get .00078, or a disease mortality rate of .078% (let's round that off to .08%) - less than one-tenth of one percent. California state’s per capita mortality rate (1,562 / 39.5 million) equals .0039%...say .004%
Now let’s look at Florida. My state has 21,500,000 people. We have 30,522 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 1,046 deaths. Using the same math and multiplier as before, Florida comes up with 1,526,000 actual COVID-19 cases. This gives us a disease mortality rate of .07%, which is…what the…slightly lower than California’s?? Our state’s total per capita death rate works out to be .005% - slightly higher than California’s. I don’t know why that is – statistical anomaly?
Here’s where all these numbers come together. If we calculate the rate of infection of the entire state’s population, we come up with basically 5% for California and 7% for Florida. Pretty low so far, right? (By the way, New York State is showing about 14% of their residents have had COVID-19 so far – but that number is obviously skewed by New York City.) Remember, we cannot accurately predict how many people in the country will ultimately contract COVID-19.
Government and health officials keep insisting that we can keep that number low. But can they? And more importantly, should they? When the coronavirus resurfaces in the Fall with the start of the regular ol’ flu season, what happens then?
In other words, what will happen in five or six months when we still don’t have a vaccine for COVID-19 and the disease comes back and we haven't developed any sort of "herd immunity?" If less than 10% of the U.S. population has developed antibodies and immunity to the coronavirus, won’t it pose the same threat to us then as it does now? And will we have to go through this isolation and social-distancing bullshit all over again?
Who Am I?
- Bob Barbanes:
- A nobody; a nitwit; a pilot; a motorcyclist; a raconteur; a lover...of life - who loves to laugh, who tries to not take myself (or anything) too seriously...just a normal guy who knows his place in the universe by being in touch with my spiritual side. What more is there?
2 comments:
According to Wikipedia, herd immunity for Covid-19 is somewhere between 29 and 74% of the population, so we have a long ways to go. Also, I'm not sure it is ever going to leave us for the summer as they initially said.
My state had it's worst day yet yesterday in terms of reported infections and more importantly, deaths. Right now it is hitting hard places of employment that are "essential" and have close working quarters, i.e. meat packing plants. I'm assuming it will burn through these places but once things start getting dialed back as far as restrictions, which our governor begins doing starting Monday, I'm guessing we will have more such incidences as people return to work until we burn through enough of the population for herd immunity or a vaccine, whichever comes first.
You do get the picture, Ed. We can keep the economy locked down and the virus will stick around until the end of the year and maybe beyond. Or we can open it up and...well, deal with the consequences. I'm sure glad those type of decisions are waaaay above my pay grade!
Either way, I wouldn't bet on a vaccine being available any time soon. Although...having said that...you have to KNOW that doctors in every country are working literally around the clock to come up with one. So you never know. Still, with all of the testing that will have to happen before a vaccine can be released to the public, it's gonna be a while.
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