Death rate is calculated by dividing the number of deaths by the number of cases, and multiplying the resulting fraction by 100 to make it into percent. So far so good. We are pretty sure that we don't know the true number of cases of Corona virus (COVID-19). We only call it a case when some brand new test comes back positive. We are no where near to testing everybody. At a guess (wild ass guess, WAG) there are two or three times as many cases out there than the ones we know about. We expect that as we do more testing, we will find more cases, which reduces the death rate. Right now, using the numbers we have, the death rate from Corona virus is somewhere between 1 or 2 percent.
Listening to the TV this morning I hear about people who look healthy, feel good, show no symptoms. are testing positive for Corona virus. This might be something wrong with the test (it's brand new and we haven't had time to check everything), or it might be these people have a good strong immune system, or the grace of God, or something that keeps them healthy. We don't know if these people are infectious. Maybe they are, maybe they are not. Should these people be counted as cases of the disease? Is it reasonable to call healthy people sick just because a test comes back positive?
No comments:
Post a Comment