[kabar]

True, which is why I included the second set of numbers accounting for 20% of cases going undiscovered. The China study can't be trusted, but even that revised their estimate from 86% down to 35%. A study on the cruise ship puts the number at 17.9%. Another study I saw said I think 14-16%. So I figured 20% is a decent, somewhat accurate number to use.

Disagree. When you look at the CDC numbers for the generic flu, they use a sample of 1.4 million tests combining data from public health and clinical labs with about 20% testing positive similar to the 14% we are finding with the Wuhan virus. Based on the data for the generic flu, CDC estimates that an additional 38 million are positive but unreported thus arriving at their .1% mortality rate.

20% is low. Based on the latest data from NY 44,635 tested positive and 101,118 negative, which is an infection rate of 31%. The unreported cases must easily be much greater.

[Svartalfiar]

Disagree. When you look at the CDC numbers for the generic flu, they use a sample of 1.4 million tests combining data from public health and clinical labs with about 20% testing positive similar to the 14% we are finding with the Wuhan virus. Based on the data for the generic flu, CDC estimates that an additional 38 million are positive but unreported thus arriving at their .1% mortality rate.

But that math isn't looking at quite the same thing. The 20% influenza-positive is from cases that exhibited flu-like symptoms, and were tested. There's large numbers of people with flu-like symptoms that aren't tested. Nor people that don't exhibit symptoms. All that math says is that of people who thought they had flu and were actually tested, 80% are NOT the flu. So really, if you extrapolate that out, if 39MM people think they have the flu, then it's probably only 8MM that are actual influenza cases. Likewise, flu deaths are greatly inflated as well, with only a couple hundred to a few thousand being confirmed to have influenza, and even then, those are "flu-related", not "flu-caused". Most of the deaths are due to pneumonia, which can have a huge variety of causes, and isn't necessarily the flu.

Positives out of suspected cases is different than positives out of unsuspected cases.


20% is low. Based on the latest data from NY 44,635 tested positive and 101,118 negative, which is an infection rate of 31%. The unreported cases must easily be much greater.

Except here we're looking at numbers as the caseload is on the upswing. There's definitely a lot of untested positives out there, but many of those simply haven't hit the symptom stage yet. They will present, at which time they won't count as an undiscovered carrier. The undetected infection rate will drop quite a bit as positives have symptoms and get tested. But of those tested in NY, are those random people, or are they people exhibiting symptoms that would lead medical staff to think they have the Wuhan virus? The issue with this virus that makes things difficult is the asymptomatic spread. The only difference between these hidden carriers and someone who ends up in the hospital is just time. Assuming those tests were all of sick people, that NY math just tells us the same as above: that of people with the symptoms, 70% do NOT have the virus.

Again, there is a difference between undiscovered carriers in general, and positives for people exhibiting Wuhan-like symptoms.