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Torillian on 03 March 2020
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Amnesia said:
Torillian said:

How do you counter the argument that that 52,000 cases does not include those with minimal or no symptoms but who still caught the virus? Obviously those with no symptoms aren't included in the death toll (death seems like a pretty significant symptom), but they should be considered in the patient total. 

No, because you don't die in 0,01sec once you get the virus. There is only one way to know : you get the virus, only 2 possible issues : death or recover.

And so far among 52000 closed cases, which is a huge statistical sample, we have 6,1% today.

I think we're misunderstanding each other. I get that this is a reasonable statistical sample. The argument, though, is that those 52,000 people do not include those who caught the virus but were not checked for it because they showed no or minimal symptoms. It's similar to something like Tuberculosis where many people can be infected without ever knowing about it because it's dormant. If someone catches a mild case of this particular virus they would be none the wiser and would not be included in that 52,000. You can argue that for those who come down with a significant case of the disease there is a death rate of ___ but I think many people read this as "if this virus gets in your system you have a 6% chance of dying" which is what the other poster was arguing against. 

Now I think that most disease death rates probably don't include those who show no symptoms or never see a doctor for their disease because it was mild. We can therefore compare this disease to others and talk about how deadly it is for those who have enough symptoms to go to a doctor, but one should not read that as "if ____ people are infected with this virus 6% of those will die". My apologies if this isn't how you meant the statement about the death rate, but that is how it can read. 



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