General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: A sort of a straw poll here. Do you believe the infection/death numbers we are getting? [View all]pat_k
(9,313 posts)More systematic testing was taking place in those states by about the 10th. By that point, I think it is safe to assume hospital admissions with COVID-19-like symptoms would have been tested, and if the case ended in death, it would have been be properly identified.
I'm not so sure about how extensively hospital admissions for respiratory symptoms were tested before that and have been assuming a number of COVID-19 hospitalizations that ended in death went unidentified in NY and WA prior to 3/10 or so.
The numbers in CA -- both cases and deaths -- are way off. They are not tracking in any coherent way (see quote below).
As far as other states. I don't trust any of their numbers. Systematic testing/reporting appears to be absent in a majority of them.
The states testing the most people per capital, WA and NY, have still only tested 40 to 50 people per 10,000. I think there are probably a lot more symptomatic people who have not been tested (either recovered already or just self-quarantined). Other states are waaayyy behind even those relatively low testing rates. Given such limited data, I have no idea how to even guesstimate. In particular, I think we have no f-ing idea how many undetected recovered people there are or exactly how may COVID-19 related deaths there have been to this point.
As far as currently active cases, about 70% of the nation, or 230 million live in a metropolitan statistical area of over 200,000 people. If I were forced to pull a number out of you know where, I'd say an average of 1 in 100 of these people, or about 2.3 million is either incubating or symptomatic. With a mortality rate of 1.5% (latest average I heard sometime last week), than approximately 34,000 of the currently infected wold be expected to die in the next 2 to 4 weeks.
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Regarding testing/reporting in CA, from an article in The Guardian:
We are cobbling together various approaches, Susan Butler-Wu, an associate professor of clinical pathology at the University of Southern Californias Keck School of Medicine, told the LA Times. The whole thing is badly discombobulated ... I think 100% that the system is broken.