What do these numbers mean?

I am pretty sure that "confirmed cases" mean that they had the test, and it came back positive.

Remember that deaths lag cases, and that both numbers are going up exponentially. This means that your calculation of 1% is not very meaningful. Calculating the number of cases at any given time that will end up being fatal can only be done in hindsight.

I've been wondering about the numbers, too. X number of cases in a populated state like California isn't really comparable to the same number in a thinly populated state like New Mexico. X in California might be a very small percentage of population there, and an overwhelming percentage in New Mexico.

given what I'm hearing and seeing, what you/we are lacking is full-scale testing and monitoring to the degree done in Hong Kong and South Korea.

Friends just came back from 3 months in Australia/NZ/Hong Kong/Singapore/Thailand/Singapore . They've been posting stories and photos throughout their travels. My favourite (?) pic was of one of their friends in Hong Kong who was wearing an ankle bracelet to make sure he did not leave his home while awaiting test results. Solid data collection re location/contacts. Serious lockdowns.

yup. I've been trying to work out some percentages up here and the results are striking. we have about the same number as the province blatham is in - but we've got at least 3x the population. and then jurisdictions don't report the same things. Another province here counts all presumptive cases as confirmed - which might be a better way to go but I'd need to have paid a LOT more attention in the epidemiology courses I took several decades back to know.

So I researched:
South Korea
1. Identified “infection clusters” including one specific temple,
2. Swooped in and tested/ hospitalized those exhibiting symptoms,
3. Quarantined all family members
4. And (here’s what Americans wouldn’t tolerate) tracked thru phone calls and any kind of contact these quarantined people had in the last 14 days, and put those people in quarantine.

But here’s what Bothers me.
100 people are tested.
30 are identified as “ confirmed cases”. Then 30 die.

The media reports the death percentage based on the 30 instead if the 100:


3/30 instead of 3/100.

Italy reported nearly 7.5% death rate. It was no where near that. But the virus was so virulent that they stopped counting the negatives and slight symptom tests. No country could have been prepared for the quickness if this disease. But valuable data was not collected at the time.

Dr. Deborah Brix touched upon this lack of data at the press conference today. I’m glad she got time to speak.

Trump let someone else speak on TV? Damn I wish is seen that. I thought no one could take his microphone away from him.

1. The number I would really like to know is how many people who contract the virus will eventually die from the virus?. This is number is very hard to calculate (you can't just divide one number by another since people die some indeterminate time after they contract the disease).

2. The number I am watching is the number of deaths, particularly the rate that this number is increasing. I think this is the one statistic that is pretty accurate (once someone dies, they are sure to be recorded).

3. They are doing contact tracing in the US, particularly in New York. I know someone who is helping to manage this process.

I can't argue that. The number of infected seems impossible to determine in even the vaguest sense. Deaths are much more accurate, though I'm sure there is a tendency to include some from other causes.

They also seem to be testing (? or at least doing an autopsy) on many/most/all suspected deaths so the % of those being confirmed is likely a lot higher than for us living folk.

Cases in the US and Mass seem to double every 3 days or so, give or take. Deaths definitely lag (of course).

On March 24, Punkey wrote:

As of today's update, the Covid-19confirmed number is 44,635 and the death date went up by 134 and now stands at 519.
as can be seen, the percentage is on the rise.


Personally, I find no reason to go from into total percentages at this time. It's depressing, saddening and ultimately not worth diddly squat. The final toll will be the truest marker

I'm going to put some numbers up for posterity.

country______ infect_____ deaths_____ recover_____ pop
US.________ 123.5K _____ 2217 ______ 2465 ______ 325m
Italy________ 92.5K _____ 10K ______12.5K _______60m
China_______ 81.4K _____ 3K ________ 74K _______1.44B
Spain________ 73K ______6K _______ 12K ________ 46m
Germany_____ 58K ______433 _______ 13K ________ 84m
France_______ 37K ______ 2K ________ 5K _______ 65.3m
UK _________17K _______ 1K ________ 135 ________ 67m

With varying dates of 'onset', it's not easy to make sense of the numbers for me. The graph I'm using also shows the rate of recent growth. For example, the US and the UK are showing growth of 30% and 34% in deaths and 18% and 17% growth in infections respectively. Our onsets are similar, but our population numbers are, of course, vastly different... Germany's death and infection growth rates are 5% and 7% lower that the US, but their recovery rate is much higher. They're coming out the end of this with incredibly low mortality rates.

Here is the complicated story that may explain part of why Germany's citizens are living and ours are dying.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/us-coronavirus-test/
_____________________________________
I c and p'd this from the Coronavirus thread. I've been sitting here looking at the math, too.

Good live updates.
https://ncov2019.live/data

It is difficult to compare the data between countries. Different countries have different ways of calculating the rate of infection and recovery.

The rate of deaths is likely more accurate (there is guesswork with death). Many people are particularly questioning the numbers out of China.

I keep saying this, deaths lag cases. If right now 100 people are sick, some of those people will die. If the epidemic is growing exponentially, the people who die on March 15 (and are counted in the March 15 states) really got sick on March 5 or 7th when the number of people who were sick was much lower.

or we can count sequential/cumulative infection v deaths over a week or two weeks or a month.

As I noted elsewhere, the number of cases in the US has been "bending" (i.e. igrowing at a rate that is slower than exponential) for about a week. The number of deaths is still growing exponentially.

Can you explain this?