0.004% of the population of Iceland (above stated to be 357k) is 14.28. There’s a typo evident in the earlier statement about infections and deaths so I don’t know the actual death toll. The actual infection rate from 10% testing is 261 showing that the total number likely to have it would be around 2610 (2k to 3k a reasonable range). If the death toll from 3k was 0.004% the expected number of deaths is 0.12, or one eighth of a person.
The upper end of my projected number of infections is about one per cent of the population of Iceland. Surely we would be expecting a higher saturation than that in our own case, maybe Iceland has been cut off from incoming potential spreaders more effectively.
At any rate, I find this percentage if meant to apply to all persons who receive an infection, even asymptomatic, to be questionable as in too small, more likely to be in the vicinity of 0.1%. For example, in my home province of BC there have been about 100 deaths so far. The total population here is four million. For 100 deaths to be 0.004% of the number of infections, we would have needed a total number of infections to reach 2.5 million or 60% of our population. If it were that high, most people have already had the thing and were either asymptomatic or recovered from whatever they did have. If my number of 0.1% is correct, then to reach 100 deaths, 100,000 people or 2.5% of the population would have been exposed. That may be a bit low, so the actual percentage could be closer to 0.05%.
An unknown would be how many of the already exposed could contract a second bout and the outcome of that.
So I had a look at the actual newspaper article. Not sure what actual numbers are tested, infected for Iceland, but apparently it’s seven actual deaths. For seven to be 0.004% it would represent a number of infected persons equal to about 175,000. (If you’re playing along at home, 0.004% is equal to the fraction 1/25,000).
Perhaps we could gain more useful insight from the UK numbers despite a lower testing rate. These are
“As of yesterday, the UK had tested 316,836 people of its 66.4 million population, with 73,758 confirmed infections. This translates to 0.48 per cent of the population swabbed.
Of those infected, 8,958 have died, a case fatality rate of around 0.12 per cent, notably higher than Iceland’s.”
Now, it seems likely to me that they would test a more vulnerable segment of the population, so bear that in mind as I analyze those numbers as if they were actually totally representative of random distribution (they may not be).
The infection rate is 23.3% of the sample (may equate to 15 or 20 per cent of a larger, less vulnerable total).
The death rate they cite makes no mathematical sense (0.12%) since 8,958 is 0.12% of just under 750,000 infected. That number is ten times the number found in the sample, and relates to perhaps 5% of the UK population (perhaps 10% or even 20% if you accept a sample of the vulnerable) rather than the 0.5% of the sample, of the total population.
The only way that it makes sense is for the overall infection rate to be considerably lower than the sample taken.
Since there are possible problems with both the Iceland and UK numbers, I think it’s basically a do-over situation here.