Of course it is - I was demonstrating what COULD happen if the actual number of positive case was known (which, since it isn't there is no way to get that actual number).klkla wrote: ↑May 7th, 2020, 7:22 pmYou're missing the point. We use these statistics to compare how lethal Covid19 is compared to OTHER viruses. The other viruses we are comparing it too were measured in the same way against known cases. And using that comparison it is significantly more lethal than a normal flu and other viruses.BillyGr wrote: ↑May 7th, 2020, 6:08 pmI think you missed the point I was making. The actual known figure may be 5.8% BUT that figure may not actually be the correct number.
To get that "death rate" figure, they are taking the number of deaths and dividing by the number of people that are positive - for example, using a previously posted set of numbers, "988 cases and 35 deaths. So about a 3.5% death rate."
BUT, there have been many instances where this has been shown to have infected people with no symptoms showing, and they happen to get tested to confirm it (maybe linked to someone else). However, there are likely others that have the same scenario and never get tested, and at one point there were even places not testing those showing symptoms unless they got bad enough to go to the hospital.
Therefore, the total positive number is too low, and if that number were accurate (just say in this case there are another 988 people who are positive but not tested), then when you divide you get a death rate of around 1.75%, which is quite different.
The 1.75% figure is 'voodoo statistics' and is a figure being made up with no statistical validation whatsoever.
The actual number of flu cases is most likely much more accurate, as anyone who had flu symptoms could be very easily confirmed as tests for that have always been available when needed (unlike this, where many places still have few available).
The other thing that plays in are the tests they are now doing to show people who had it and didn't know - a small random sampling done here in NY state (in many areas around the state) suggested that the number just in the state could be as large as the known number for the entire US is now, which would be a huge increase in the numbers that have had it, and would drop the percentage drastically.
Obviously we don't know for certain that is the case, but what is being pointed out is that people may be scared by whatever the current rate is if that is all they see, without understanding the potential flaws in the whole process.