While I believe that most of my readers CAN see things this way, and can understand statistics, just in case, you should READ THIS.
As we test for more cases, we find that the rate of death is remaining pretty stable. we find that the rate of people dying looks to be just a bit over 1%. Not that the death of 1% of the Coronavirus sufferers is not tragic…it is. But it isn’t the 10% that the WHO told us might happen.
And, having said that, Aesop has a great commentary on a previous post here as to why that number of people hitting the hospitals is overwhelming their ability to care for these people.
One statistic I DO NOT have, and would like to have, is the number of people with severe cases of Covid-19 that need a ventilator that recover. In other words, if you get bad enough that you need a ventilator, and are placed on a ventilator, what are your chances of recovery? 50%? 20%? 10%? I suspect that people that get sick enough to need a ventilator may not recover no matter what care is given. I hope I am incorrect. I simply don’t know, as there is, again, simply no data to be had. It would be a good bit of information to know though.
Per the lessons learned from the ER doc in Nawlins, the death rate for those on a vent with Kung Flu is 86% worldwide, and 70% in Seattle.
IOW, on average, anywhere in the world, 14% of the people who go on a ventilator will recover and live. 1 in 7.
In the U.S., we may save 30%. 1 in 3.
Everyone else dies, in 11-21 days.
Those are the ones at the "really sick" end of the bell curve.
Everyone else lives, which is 96-98.5%, give or take.
But, yet again, 3% of 100M is 3M, or 2M more sick people than there are beds for in the whole U.S.
3% of 10M is bad, but only 300,000, which we might could manage to drag our way through.
So slowing the growth and stretching things out before the peak, is the only thing that can help, unless and until we find something that can defeat this in either treatment or vaccination.
Hence the lockdown quarantines.
Whether it will work, or it's already too late, remains to be seen.