It is striking how errors in discussions of this topic are systematically in the direction of downplaying the severity. Probably 95% of errors.
assuming a runaway infection we’d have R=3 so ~220M infected
This is a math error. Herd immunity is achieved once 1-1/R is infected. The goal of “flattening the curve,” is to just barely reach this number. But in a “runaway” scenario, it is much higher. The epidemic final size of the SIR model is 94%.
Since Lombardy had a population fatality rate of 0.2%, I’m not going to look at your citations. I assume the problem is that they ignore most of the deaths.
I don’t think this really means anything without knowing the fraction infected. Robbio’s antibody testing a month ago showed 13-14% infected so naively this gives 1.4% IFR. Possibly some sampling bias though. On the other hand this is a small town and presumably larger towns / cities would expect higher rates.
I’m willing to accept that IFR might push a bit over 1% but that doesn’t overcome the need for a massive outbreak to happen across the whole US without significant action being taken to minimise the impact to get to 3M deaths.
It is striking how errors in discussions of this topic are systematically in the direction of downplaying the severity. Probably 95% of errors.
This is a math error. Herd immunity is achieved once 1-1/R is infected. The goal of “flattening the curve,” is to just barely reach this number. But in a “runaway” scenario, it is much higher. The epidemic final size of the SIR model is 94%.
Since Lombardy had a population fatality rate of 0.2%, I’m not going to look at your citations. I assume the problem is that they ignore most of the deaths.
Good point, thanks.
I don’t think this really means anything without knowing the fraction infected. Robbio’s antibody testing a month ago showed 13-14% infected so naively this gives 1.4% IFR. Possibly some sampling bias though. On the other hand this is a small town and presumably larger towns / cities would expect higher rates.
I’m willing to accept that IFR might push a bit over 1% but that doesn’t overcome the need for a massive outbreak to happen across the whole US without significant action being taken to minimise the impact to get to 3M deaths.