“Its also worth noting, the CFR has been trending up lately, possibly due to a slowdown in case designations due to a dearth of kits. Or maybe it IS getting deadlier.”
More likely the CFR is going up for two reasons. First, there are several regions where this is just starting to spread widely. Fatalities will happen faster than recoveries, so for what ever the actual mortality rate is, the instantaneous CFR will be higher. The other reason is that we’re getting honest numbers rather than the Chinese suppressed numbers, even though the Chinese numbers are still included and contaminate the results.
“For comparison, per the CDC, the numbers for the flu in 2017-2018 were 61k dead and 810k hospitalized or 7.5%.”
That 810k hospitalized number is misleading. There were many times that number of reported cases and undoubtedly many more times that number of unreported cases. But the ‘but flu’ trolls will glom onto that 7.5% number to claim the flu is more dangerous. Probably even before I finish this post...
My point isn't that thes numbers are proof-positive facts that the 2017-2018 US influenza strain was deadlier than coronavirus. My point is that we CAN perform calculations, we CAN understand drawbacks to this or that number...and we can MAKE INFERENCES.
Yes, there may be some apples to oranges in my numbers. Hospitalizations aren't resolved cases...but at least my numbers are fruit salad.
But the ‘but flu’ trolls will glom onto that 7.5% number to claim the flu is more dangerous. Probably even before I finish this post..
FR is a place where we usually have the ability to make reasoned, cogent assessments wth imperfect information is a state of life. Rarely do we get perfection...yet increasingly many here like to make inferences that are just nuts - akin to global warming simulations and R0 estimates at this stage of the epidemic. But some estimates ARE fair, and we will have to plow through the trolls.