His_Highness
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
History and denominators.....
Testing: In the US tests are only given to those with the worst symptoms. I've personally seen/heard from a few relatives that tried to get the test that unless they have a fever and respiratory issues they cannot get the test. They are just told to stay home... so we're missing some numbers here. Aside from those who have corona symptoms that aren't severe enough to qualify for a test there are reports of those globally who are asymptomatic. The denominator remains challenged in these areas unless the entire population is tested and likely would require testing again.
Geographically there are differing factors like population demographics (age of the population is especially important in Italy), hospital bed availability per-capita in the more challenged areas, population density and one country's ability to enforce rules on their population that wouldn't be accepted in another. These factors contribute to the survival rate and are hard to quantify.
What I'm trying to point out is that we are "potentially" missing many who have OR HAD the virus but aren't being counted. I don't want to play Pollyanna here but I prefer to think the death rate is possibly over-estimated. Death's are a much easier number to get a grip on but without the complete number for those who have or had the virus we're not getting the straight answer.
Testing: In the US tests are only given to those with the worst symptoms. I've personally seen/heard from a few relatives that tried to get the test that unless they have a fever and respiratory issues they cannot get the test. They are just told to stay home... so we're missing some numbers here. Aside from those who have corona symptoms that aren't severe enough to qualify for a test there are reports of those globally who are asymptomatic. The denominator remains challenged in these areas unless the entire population is tested and likely would require testing again.
Geographically there are differing factors like population demographics (age of the population is especially important in Italy), hospital bed availability per-capita in the more challenged areas, population density and one country's ability to enforce rules on their population that wouldn't be accepted in another. These factors contribute to the survival rate and are hard to quantify.
What I'm trying to point out is that we are "potentially" missing many who have OR HAD the virus but aren't being counted. I don't want to play Pollyanna here but I prefer to think the death rate is possibly over-estimated. Death's are a much easier number to get a grip on but without the complete number for those who have or had the virus we're not getting the straight answer.