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Re:California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf] by digitaltrees on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @10:17PM (#22873778)
It’s not 0.5% it’s closer to 2%.

You don’t have a normal economy if people don’t want to go out in public or the supply chain is interrupted as workers get sick. A pandemic will harm the economy no matter what we do, these efforts, it is hoped, will reduce the impact while also saving lives and the hospital system.

Re:California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf] by apatters on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @10:40PM (#22873912)
What's your source for 2%? A recent study which was featured on Hacker News estimated the infection fatality rate at 0.66%. [1]

I have seen a number of studies putting the case fatality rate at 2-3%, but this number cannot be generalized to the entire population because current testing is skewed toward the most serious cases. [2]

Long-term mortality in the total population may look something like 0.66% * 0.7 assuming there are no advances in treatment (possible but unlikely, given the unprecedented efforts that are underway, and how naive we were on day one).

In general more recent studies estimating IFR should be more accurate, early ones came with a lot of caveats. If there is a better estimate of IFR than 0.66%, I would like to read it.

[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_fatality_rate

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22828691

Re:California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf] by khuey on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @10:49PM (#22873969)
The CFR in Italy is nearly 13%. Even if you make incredibly generous assumptions that there are no unreported deaths and they're only catching 10% of cases that still leaves the infection fatality rate at twice the number you propose
Re:California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf] by marcell on Wednesday April 15, 2020 @01:12AM (#22874744)
That's almost certainly untrue. Recent studies have show that as many as 38% of the Italian population has been infected at this point [1]. That gives a fatality rate 0.03%. Let's say the official death count is 10x undercounting, you're still left with 0.3%.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/CoronavirusUK/comments/fxgk8q/early...

Re:California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf] by smallgovt on Wednesday April 15, 2020 @03:06PM (#22881722)
This published scientific article shows you why the CFR in Italy is so high -- and why it doesn't apply to the general population: http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2763667

Takeaways: Old population, Pre-existing conditions, Skewed testing

Re:California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf] by lbeltrame on Wednesday April 15, 2020 @08:45AM (#22877046)
Testing is severely undercounting cases here. People who just experience fever are told to self-isolate and aren't tested. Not all of these (luckily) end up hospitalized, so those are never, ever counted.
Re:California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf] by apatters on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @11:10PM (#22874095)
With an older population, a problematic medical system, and being caught totally unprepared, isn't Italy the worst case scenario? I don't think it would be representative of what's going to happen in other countries from here on out.
Re:California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf] by khuey on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @11:45PM (#22874299)
I don't know where this meme came from that Italy has a "problematic medical system" but that's certainly not true in Lombardy.
Re:California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf] by ModernMech on Wednesday April 15, 2020 @12:19AM (#22874457)
The US has a population riddled with comorbitities (obesity, heart disease, diabetes, etc.), a problematic medical system, and was caught totally unprepared. Isn't the US the worst case scenario, with the most deaths and most infections in the world?
Re:California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf] by girvo on Wednesday April 15, 2020 @12:59AM (#22874676)
You pretty much just described the US.
Re:California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf] by Mountain_Skies on Wednesday April 15, 2020 @12:31AM (#22874521)
>Isn't the US the worst case scenario, with the most deaths and most infections in the world?

Adjust your numbers for population. Per capita numbers for the US are far from the worse case scenario.

Re:California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf] by saalweachter on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @10:56PM (#22874012)
I use the 0.66% number myself when estimating things, but it's worth noting that that is that papers best-guess estimated infection fatality rate for China, based on its demographics.

The paper has an overall estimate of the infection fatality rate for all ages of 0.2-1.6%.

Re:California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf] by eightysixfour on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @10:30PM (#22873855)
And that also assumes everyone can get medical care, if all of the cases are happening at the same time, the mortality rate would increase as resource constraints force medical providers to pick who gets care.
Re:California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf] by throwawaysea on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @11:53PM (#22874334)
No, 2% is the case fatality rate. The true overall mortality is far lower. Germany did a randomized test recently of a town and calculated that 2% of the population is actively infected, 14% possess antibodies indicative of a current/prior infection, and overall 15% have been infected at some point. Once this broader testing was completed, the overal mortality was found to only be 0.37%. For comparison, a typical flu season is 0.1%.

https://www.tagesschau.de/regional/nordrheinwestfalen/corona...

Re:California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf] by morsch on Wednesday April 15, 2020 @07:08AM (#22876414)
For comparison, a typical flu season is 0.1%.

That is incorrect. The worst flu wave to hit Germany in the last 20 years, 2017/2018, killed appoximately 25000 people (excess mortality). That's 0.03%, and it's not typical. Often, the number is much lower.

Note also that the results from the Gangelt study you're referring to are preliminary; there's a press release but no paper yet, not even in preprint.

https://edoc.rki.de/handle/176904/6253

Re:California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf] by throwaway237683 on Wednesday April 15, 2020 @06:20PM (#22883783)
> That's 0.03%, and it's not typical. Often, the number is much lower.

0.03% or 0.1% or 0.66%, the number is low enough to be perceived as not too dangerous by general populace. Contrast that with 13% mortality rate for Italy that was widely spun a month ago. Now _that_ was scary!