In the end the only way to measure the true death toll will be to compare the actual overall deaths to the expected number of deaths.
In the US about 85 people per 10,000 die each year.
In Italy the rate is 103 per 10,000 because they have an older population.
Without the Wuhan flu we would have had 2,750,000 people die in the US this year. What will the actual number be... maybe 2,850,000???
Probably somewhere less than 2,500,000 Right now we are at 88% of expected mortality due to the shutdown and increased health awareness. The mortality from Wuhan Red Death is mainly being pulled from people who would have died later this year and won't affect the annual numbers much. OTOH the drop from the shutdown is real.
“Without the Wuhan flu we would have had 2,750,000 people die in the US this year. What will the actual number be... maybe 2,850,000???”
It isn’t so trivial if you or your wife or parents are one of the 100,000. And, the lockdown is to make sure it’s 100,000 not 500,000.
Italy has a population of 60mm and 22,000 deaths and surely there will be more. Our population is 5.5 times greater. 5.5 times 30,000 = 165,000. And they locked down the entire country 5 weeks ago.
NYC has 10,000 deaths in a city of 10mm. That’s .1%. .1% of the US is 330,000. I’m not taking a 1 in 1000 chance of dying next week, but I guess you think it’s ok for you. Luckily you aren’t in charge of the country and probably not in charge of anything thank God.