[2006alum]

Here's a paper arguing the denominator is much larger than we thought.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/...20050542v1

Short version, if you look at reports of "influenza like illness" but scale it for the proportion of tests that are positive, you find that there was a lot of unexplained illness out there, that might be mildly symptomatic Covid-19.  According to the authors, just in the week starting on March 15, 2020 there may have been up to 10 million Covid-19 cases presenting as mild flu.  If that's the case, the denominator is much larger than we thought and the CFR (as these are symptomatic patients) may be closer to 0.1% than 2%.

This Economist article summarizes the paper well:

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail...-good-news

BC

To which I return to my earlier question: can anyone remember a leader of a modern developed nation being admitted to the ICU for the flu? Boris Johnson staked his reputation on COVID-19 being not that much worse than the flu, so he clearly had no political incentive to be admitted to the ICU. Yes, it's an anecdote. But there's no way to spin how devastating that anecdote is to anyone who thinks this is no different from the flu.

[2006alum]

Here's a paper arguing the denominator is much larger than we thought.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/...20050542v1

Short version, if you look at reports of "influenza like illness" but scale it for the proportion of tests that are positive, you find that there was a lot of unexplained illness out there, that might be mildly symptomatic Covid-19.  According to the authors, just in the week starting on March 15, 2020 there may have been up to 10 million Covid-19 cases presenting as mild flu.  If that's the case, the denominator is much larger than we thought and the CFR (as these are symptomatic patients) may be closer to 0.1% than 2%.

This Economist article summarizes the paper well:

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail...-good-news

BC

To which I return to my earlier question: can anyone remember a leader of a modern developed nation being admitted to the ICU for the flu? Boris Johnson staked his reputation on COVID-19 being not that much worse than the flu, so he clearly had no political incentive to be admitted to the ICU. Yes, it's an anecdote. But there's no way to spin how devastating that anecdote is to anyone who thinks this is no different from the flu.