Median age in Spain and Italy is 45. Median age in US is 38.
The mortality rates for Covid-19 double from the thirties to the forties.
The mortality is 6x the thirties when you are in your 50s.
17x in your 60s.
You get the drift with this.
Essentially, you're wrong statistically, and here's why... The CDC website in america instructs people NOT to get tested unless they have life threatening symptoms (to flatten the curve), so there's not way to know the denominator of the equation you propose in the USA in any of the math.
So, if we have 2 people infected and 1 dies. The mortality rate is 50%. If we actually have 2,000 people infected and 1 dies, the rate is .05% There's no way to do the math without having an accurate accounting of who is infected. Without completely testing everyone or extrapolating the ratio's through "random" testing, or you get no accurate statistics. In cases where you test only those people who are in medical distress, you get hugely inflated numbers on all measures of infection and severity of symptoms. I'd suggest do some reading and find out the bigger picture, rather than rattle off misleading statistics. Both the media and the governmental entities focus too much on "body count" rather than educating the public to the details of what we are faced with.
Given the fact that I live in a hotspot area, and was sick 3 weeks ago, I went to the CDC website to figure out what to do and collected some of the less publicized, yet crucial information listed below:
-It's estimated that
80% of the people who are infected have mild symptoms to almost no symptoms, and yet the virus absolutely kills some people. This diversity in the degree of illness causes those who are not ill, yet are infected to dismiss the possibility of being infectious in many cases. If it made every infected person quite ill, the human behavioral response would be better.
-An infected person can be infectious and not display any symptoms for anywhere from 4 to as long as 14 days. This is what the CDC said 3 weeks ago. This fact may have changed as research has been changing facts as it is done.
These 2 facts are the reason that the medical community knows that without an inoculation for the virus, all they can do is "flatten the curve". Meaning, slow the infection rate so they can save as many people as possible who's symptoms are life threatening. The wide symptomatic expression of this virus is part of what makes it so contagious. People are walking around who are asymptomatic, yet they are still infectious without a clue.
When I was sick, the CDC website interactive quiz told me that I may indeed have the virus, but NOT to be tested unless I have more serious symptoms because medical facilities are already overwhelmed testing, and caring for the seriously ill people who are infected. The CDC recommend that I have no contact with other people for at least 2 weeks, which I have done and am pretty much still doing.
What the CDC, Dr's Fauci and Birx don't make clear enough is there are only 2 possibilities. Either almost the entire population gets exposed to the virus, so there's herd immunity developed (which means some who have severe symptoms may die) OR, there's a vaccine developed in time before the entire population is eventually exposed. There is no working plan where "flattening the curve" keeps most of the population from being exposed. "Flattening the curve" is just to spread out the medical resources so facilities are not overwhelmed with people who all need treatment at the same time. Social distancing is NOT an attempt at containment. It's about flattening the curve.... (read above)
Some time ago, someone here was projecting at least 2 million will die from this because of the poor governmental response to the epidemic. Then the number was 200,000 dead, and more recently the numbers are under 100,000. This is because of poor statistical collection practices. Testing can give valid statistics, but not by only testing people who are in distress. (that's what the CDC is recommending here in america to "flatten the blah blah blah")
Basically, I'm sick of hearing the "Don't kid yourself" or the "You get the drift" baloney... If you ever wrote an essay for some professional journal and started your essay with the former quote and finished it with the later, you should give your diploma back to your school... Don't let the media hype you to embrace paranoia, or dismiss common sense. There is no "drift" to get, or dire warning needed if you do your own research on the CDC website.
I'm a Backcountry skier. Many Backcountry skiers die in avalanches. That's a fact of life. Snow science researchers who are experts in snowpack structure are also occasionally killed in the backcountry. The reason is because humans are fallible. Experts are wrong sometimes. I have a saying for backcountry traveling that expresses the situation of the inherent dangers of backcountry travel.
"The risk is never zero. Even when it's low risk, there's still a possibility of being caught in a triggered release. At some point if you are going to travel in the backcountry, you must accept some amount of risk."
And that's where we are with the Covid19 situation. At some point we have to go back to functional living because the risk will never be ZERO, or even near zero. That's the critical judgement that looms. When is the risk low enough to resume normal life?
It's pretty obvious, one political faction wants to accept more risk by restarting normal life because the strong economy would be a significant factor in their re-election. It's also obvious that there's a mirror opposite who hope that their narrative of accepting too much risk too quickly will cause greatly increased death rates which proves that it's their turn to run the government. Both of these seem true to me.
Then there's the idiots on both extremes who make claims that aren't worth repeating, yet some want to claim that their ideological opposite's main stream core values are extreme. It's sad that the founders of the constitution knew that the media and freedom of speech was an important check on the corruption of powerful entities within our nation. I wonder if they ever thought that the institution of free press and free speech would become a combatant rather than the impartial referee.