5%? LOL. The death rate is between 1-2% at the most. It seems to be about 1.6% in South Korea precisely because they did more testing. When you only test the people who show up deathly ill at the hospital, of course your death rate is going to come out higher. But the real death rate has to be based on EVERYBODY who gets the virus. So it’s almost certain that the real death rate is lower than every single death rate reported so far. But South Korea is likely to be the closest to the real rate.
The “exponential” growth just isn’t happening. The pattern everywhere is that this thing spikes at a certain point and then levels off and drops. It’s already happening in Washington state as it has in many other countries who had it earlier. What seems to be happening is that infection truly is widespread, but severely underreported. And the virus is vastly more harmless than we even realize. And the herd immunity gets built up just as rapidly as the virus spreads.
I only work with real data, and I have not drilled down to country/region level. The world wide progression of the pandemic is important, as even in a country that seems to have it under control, there is always a danger of reintroduction if it is uncontrolled elsewhere.
3/20 we had 10,000 dead.
3/25 we crossed the 20,000 dead threshold.
3/31 we crossed the 40,000 dead threshold.
The death rate is doubling every 5 days (worldwide - figures based on Johns Hopkins statistics).
The pattern everywhere is that this thing spikes at a certain point and then levels off and drops. It’s already happening in Washington state as it has in many other countries who had it earlier.
Washington's Governor declared a State of Emergency in Feb, one month ago and has been tightening it up ever since. The "Stay Home, Stay Healthy" initiative was on March 25.
Seattle closed the public schools on March 12. They had been fighting to keep them open since March 1, every daily letter the school superintendent released explained why she hadn't done it yet. Parents were already keeping kids home, and eventually they quit hiding behind the Public Health Dept and closed them.
So, to say the exponential growth isn't happening and cite Seattle, the city and State that were the first to put all sorts of measures (including VERY harsh "close everything" rules) into effect before anyone else seems odd.
Maybe use numbers from Sweden, I think they are taking a less stringent approach. Or some big cities in Africa, once it gets established there. I think they will treat it like the common cold, so we'll see how that works.