Thank you for the feedback. I agree with Lukas Gloor’s reply below that the choice of term is confusing as it differs from what people may intuitively think “true cases” means. I also agree with his remark that setting terminology that is consistent with reality isn’t bad in and of itself.
I have therefore changed “true cases” to “true currently-or-eventually-symptomatic cases”. I think that provides the level of precision needed for our purposes. I haven’t found a better term after some searching (though not a lot); however, I’m happy to change to a more concise and medically accepted term if I get to learn of one.
Thank you for the feedback (and also for discussing this at length which gave me better understanding of the nuances). I modified to a more clumsy but hopefully a more what-you-see-is-what-I-mean term: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mRkWTpH9mb8Wdpcn5/coronavirus-california-case-growth?commentId=GHSEwZwR2TSkyzpdm