Analyzing the Coronavirus

IMO, understanding the full impact and severity of the coronavirus is not an exact science.  Here’s how I regard this, given the stats in the U.S. as shown here (as of 1 PM PST, April 10, 2020:

The number of cases now is doubling every 4.8 days, computed as log 2 / (log (493K (today)/427K (yesterday).   This is approximately what it’s been for the past two weeks; it’s ranged from 3 to 7.  Of course, the number of confirmed cases is a function of the number of tests performed, which varies over time. We say there are 493K cases, and we all know that it’s greater, but no one knows how much greater.

For some reason I don’t understand, some people compute the mortality rate as Deaths/Cases, 18,248/492,995, or 3.7%.  This ignores the fact that many of the infected who are alive today won’t be in a couple of weeks.  To me, it makes more sense to calculate as follows: Death/Dispositions, Death/(Deaths+Recoveries), 18,248/(18,248+27,660), or 39.7%.

I’ve seen many people who wish to downplay the impact of the disease (Trump supporters), using all manner of specious logic to justify ignoring our scientists, thus putting our entire civilization at risk.  For example:

There are about 7.8 billion people on Earth. As of April 9, 2020 there were 96,787 reported deaths from COVID-19. That means if you are an average human your chances so far of dying of COVID-19 are 1 in 80,589. (You’re 15 times more likely to die in a car accident.)