I haven't been shouting from the rooftops because I'm not an epidemiologist and don't really want to get into an argument, but none of the low/medium/high death estimates that I've seen have seemed plausible to me. The back-of-the-envelope math that I've been doing would put most of them about half an order of magnitude too low.
From what I can tell, the best-case death estimate in the US should be around 1-2 million, and the worst case should be around 5-10 million. Does this seem wildly off?
This is based on the varying death rates in other countries that have had controlled/mild/manageable outbreaks (e.g. South Korea, Singapore) vs. severe outbreaks (e.g. Italy, Iran). The overall death numbers also seem to change depending on how overrun the hospitals are (going from, e.g. 0.9% to ~3%+), national demographics, etc. I'm also assuming an eventual population infection rate of 40% - 70%.
I'd obviously be thrilled to be proven wrong, but I honestly don't understand how people are coming up with numbers that are so much more optimistic.
From what I can tell, the best-case death estimate in the US should be around 1-2 million, and the worst case should be around 5-10 million. Does this seem wildly off?
This is based on the varying death rates in other countries that have had controlled/mild/manageable outbreaks (e.g. South Korea, Singapore) vs. severe outbreaks (e.g. Italy, Iran). The overall death numbers also seem to change depending on how overrun the hospitals are (going from, e.g. 0.9% to ~3%+), national demographics, etc. I'm also assuming an eventual population infection rate of 40% - 70%.
I'd obviously be thrilled to be proven wrong, but I honestly don't understand how people are coming up with numbers that are so much more optimistic.