4 ms·

I wondered about that. But it is a reasonable number if you take into account that there were not enough tests to detect all cases. I assume that now they are

I wondered about that. But it is a reasonable number if you take into account that there were not enough tests to detect all cases. I assume that now they are getting antibody data and see that a lot more people caught this than they thought, not exhibiting symptoms or needing medical care. And there are things we still don't know, about how it spreads (turns out not so much on surfaces), and about variants that are out there (why worse in NYC and Europe than in parts of asia and west coast?) And local conditions (NYC is very dense with subways, Northern Italy with intergenerational housing and smoking, etc). More data is always good.

harry8 6y ago
> But it is a reasonable number if you take into account that there were not enough tests to detect all cases. Assume every single person contracted it and testing is irrelevant in the calculation. Then you can adjust down to 90% contracted covid, or 80% or 20% or whatever to see how that affects things if you want to. Start with deaths/population and see what number comes up. It's a really useful starting point. And a really useful skill to have to be able to check a supplied number with a back of the envelope calculation. I say do it! For more than one reason it's worthwhile.