I think this is false. There’s some strong but circumstantial evidence available about how many cases are asymptomatic or only very mild. That evidence is factored into the most recent death rate estimates. The media continues citing the wrong stuff in lots of places, but people who search carefully can find somewhat robust information about the death rate by now, and even though I haven’t checked the source for the 1 in 500 number closely, it for several reasons seems unlikely to me that it’s based on the naive calculation.
If anything 1 in 500 is more likely to be an optimistic scenario because it doesn’t factor in that 5% even of healthy people will still require hospital attention, and in true pandemic conditions, hospitals won’t have enough room. The hospital in Wuhan were overcrowded, and yet only very roughly 5% of Wuhan’s population got the virus. (And yes those 5% include mild or asymptomatic cases; confirmed cases was only 0.5%.)
I think this is false. There’s some strong but circumstantial evidence available about how many cases are asymptomatic or only very mild. That evidence is factored into the most recent death rate estimates. The media continues citing the wrong stuff in lots of places, but people who search carefully can find somewhat robust information about the death rate by now, and even though I haven’t checked the source for the 1 in 500 number closely, it for several reasons seems unlikely to me that it’s based on the naive calculation.
See these estimates about the case fatality rate: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-2019-nCoV-severity-10-02-2020.pdf
They don’t break them down by age groups though.
If anything 1 in 500 is more likely to be an optimistic scenario because it doesn’t factor in that 5% even of healthy people will still require hospital attention, and in true pandemic conditions, hospitals won’t have enough room. The hospital in Wuhan were overcrowded, and yet only very roughly 5% of Wuhan’s population got the virus. (And yes those 5% include mild or asymptomatic cases; confirmed cases was only 0.5%.)