Celebrim
Legend
It's not even a floor because we don't know how many people with the virus aren't in this ratio. If 5 times the people have it than are confirmed as having it (presumably most of those cases would be milder) then you have a much lower mortality rate.
Right. But again, SK's extensive testing proves that can't be what is happening, however hopeful and reassuring it might be to believe that is what is happening. Likewise, the size of outbreaks can be predicted to within constraints that, while those constraints may seem large (often give or take an order of magnitude), nonetheless do constrain the base number greatly because very small changes in the base number yield massive changes in the outcome of exponential functions over time.
Underlying math here:
EDIT: One other thing I should have said is that the reverse of your argument is possible as well. People who make the argument you are making here tend to assume rather unreasonably that we have accurately documented the deaths, but not accurately documented the cases. And while that might seem reasonable, it's not really true except in cases when you are testing extensively. In the US for example, we almost certainly haven't documented all of our deaths. Small numbers of unconnected deaths which aren't tested will just hide in the 'flu season' numbers. There are in fact an anomalously large number of deaths in the US over the last few months which tested negative for influenza. It's highly likely that these will eventually be connected to coronavirus, and indeed I know of at least one case where that actually happened and a death was 'back dated' after it was traced to a cluster and tested.
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