Don't forget to factor this breaking through to long term care facilities. From the last I looked at this, if it had not hit long term care, the number of deaths would have been low enough that it may have gone undetected longer. (In WA, 92% of the deaths are still folks over sixty! I don't know the numbers for how many of them were in long term care.)

Which is to say, you can't just look at the population death rate and really appreciate just how dangerous this is for older populations. The CFR for over sixty is a staggering 15% in WA. That is ridiculously high and completely masked if you look at all cases.

> Don't forget to factor this breaking through to long term care facilities.

If they're not taking any precautions (because there's no knowledge of the virus in the community) then it can spread to those types of facilities very easily. In New Zealand where only 1,500 people have have COVID-19 (likely to be very accurate, 200,000 tests have been conducted) there's already been two outbreaks in nursing homes.

Certainly. I am not implying that we should just let it run its course. Just as I would not let any disease we have a vaccine for loose in a nursing home without the vaccine.

I just think the total IFR actually undersells how dangerous this is.

A friend of a friend got released from the hospital, she had covid-19 and was searching for an oxygen concentrator for her (permanent?) lung damage.

She's 29 and otherwise healthy. I'm sure we would have noticed this disease without the high mortality rate among the elderly.

I'm sure we would have noticed. I'm not sure we would have noticed as quickly. We certainly would not have tested to find that nearly a quarter of NYC could have it.

Yes, it can do damage and is very dangerous for an at risk group. No, we don't know who that is, yet. Age clearly proxies for a risk factor. But which one?

Unless you are wanting to claim that no children have gotten this. Which, seems highly unlikely. (Or is the risk whether it will provoke an immune response?)

If I'm interpreting this[0] right, it looks like the normal death rate is 3.51 per 421 people per year. 1/421 in NYC (is that just COVID cases or all excess deaths?) is over much less than a year, so it seems fairly serious.

But I also had a truly "weird cold" go through my workplace early this year in SFBA, so I still have to wonder what that was.

[0] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=us+death+rate+*+421+pe...

Average death rate is 1/65-1/80 per year, or 1.5-1.2%, depending on country life expectancy.