Thread by @unseen1_unseen

Still not convinced that we all aren't going to die?
What would happen if we only counted the death rate for the people that went to the hospital with the flu each year? or those that just needed medical care?

Well let's see, shall we?

Per CDC
Conclusion. CDC estimates that influenza was associated with more than 35.5 million illnesses, more than 16.5 million medical visits, 490,600 hospitalizations, and 34,200 deaths during the 2018–2019 influenza season.(Jan 8, 2020)

So, if you "run the numbers"

the death rate for the 2018-2019 season was 0.1% and of those needing a medical visit was 0.2%

The death rate for those needing hospitalizations was a whooping 7%

7% OMG according to the media that must mean we are all going to die from the flu.

It also shows that 46.5% of those with the Flu required medical care.....OMG that must mean that the Flu will crash our healthcare systems.

This is the problem with "run the numbers" and "simple math" if you don't know all the numbers you can't do the simple math.

in other words you make assumptions. The biggest assumption people are making is they know all the cases there are. However, just by making other equally justified assumptions the simple math gives a totally different POV.

One of the assumptions made about the china virus is that 20% needs hospital care (15% standard hospital care+5% needing ICU). Fair enough. But that's an assumption based on known cases. In other words out of all the known cases 20% required hospitalization leaving 80%

...not needing it. But how do they now the person was infected? Did they pull every person out of their home and test them? did they test those that showed symptoms? I really don't know and I'm sure it varied. So whatever, we can use those figures to "run the numbers"

So what other figures do we have to plug into our spiffy "simple math equations"? Well we have these:

Global cases: At least 125,288, according to the latest figures from the World Health Organization
Global deaths: At least 4,614, according to the latest figures from the WHO

So what they are saying is that out of 125,288 20% needed hospitalization (25,057) and 6,264 of that 25,057 needed ICU with 100,230 having mild symptoms, fair enough. That's just "simple math" and just "running the numbers"

BUT

what if the china virus is kind of like the FLU and 46.5% needs some type of medical care and those are the only cases we are picking up.

So let's use some "simple math" and "run the numbers" on that plausible assumption. That would mean the total cases were 270,000 not 125k

and if that's the case then all the other numbers change....in our "simple math" as we "run the numbers"

at 270,000 cases that 25,057 hospitalization comes down to 9.28% requiring hospital care and only 2.32% requiring ICU care and a 1.7% death rate.

So let's carry this "simple math" & "running the numbers" to its conclusion using the FLU numbers. If 35.5 million people were infected by the china virus we would have 3.25m hospitalizations not the 7.1 m that the other assumption makes with 823,600 ICU & 603,500 deaths

In other words it would be about 7 times worse than an avg flu year. That's a concern and I don't have a problem with the government taking steps to flatten the curve on this but it isn't something that would break our society nor cause a panic and we all won't die.

You can make other assumptions that will increase or decease that "simple math" when you "run the numbers" depending on how much fear or hope you want to push. I think my assumption is reasonable but CDC numbers are saying a 1% DR which would mean 355,000 deaths

...while SK data is showing about a .7% death rate which would be about 250,000 deaths. Each is a concern and I don't have a problem with taking steps to contain and mitigate this virus and I'm sure the governments feel the same but none of these numbers will destroy society.

So to wrap this up. We really have no idea of the data so we can't really do "simple math" nor can we "run the numbers" We can only make assumptions. The more data we have the better the assumptions get but unless we are going to test everyone they are still assumptions.

It's clear that the "assumptions" on the data we do know gives enough cause for concern to governments to place containment and mitigation methods in place. Doing so does not mean the governments know something we don't or its the end of the world.

The much more likely case it that it just means they would rather not deal with that much death and healthcare problems when they can avoid it.

It should also be clear from the discussion that people can make whatever assumptions they want based on the actual numbers to create

...whatever narrative they want to push. Remember, no one knows the real numbers and everything you hear is based at least somewhat on underlying assumptions. Before accepting the "numbers" and "simple math" find out what those assumptions are.

If those assumptions make sense to you then you can start making some rational decisions as long as you remember the "results" are still based on unknowns.