Assuming the ratio of cases with symptoms to cases without symptoms usually remains the same, I must admit I don't immediately understand why it would be important to determine the amount of asymptomatic cases to determine the risk. It seems to me the growth rate of (symptomatic) cases would be the major indicator for that. (Obviously it would be of general interest, but I mean specifically with respect to gauging the risk).
It all seems to hinge on the assumption that with the implemented "strategy A", nobody with pneumonia would be tested for Covid19 unless they have a known connection to a symptomatic case. That of course would be a mistake. But were people really that complacent that it would never occur to them to test for Covid19, even as the rest of the world is talking about nothing else? (Availability of tests is of course a factor here, but should only be a temporary impediment).
I am interested in it, because here in Germany there also is currently a discussion of the virus spreading silently, only to come back in full force in fall if we become complacent. I must admit I don't fully understand the logic behind that, as surely when it spreads silently, it also has a proportion of symptomatic cases in its wake, so that in the end, it doesn't spread silently after all.
"No, that's impossible to provide between people dying at home because hospitals are full and the general chaos of those situations."
That's another claim you make, that you should be able to support. Have people been denied hospital care and therefore died at home?
"the trend is nearly always that more cases at once translate to much higher death rates"
Could have any number of explanations, like maybe infected old people homes.
"it's nonsensical to think that quality of medical care will not have an effect."
Again - are there cases of people dying because they couldn't receive care in the US, and how many?
"but mostly due to the availability of medical care."
Again, can you give any examples of people dying because they couldn't receive care? Especially in the US. And show that it is a significant number of people?
"Again, the current worldwide figure is 7%, with two thirds of the known cases still pending."
No. You can not simply calculate the death rate by dividing known deaths by known cases. Those numbers depend on who got tested and on how deaths are being counted, which also varies greatly from country to country. For starters, people who have severe symptoms are more likely to show up at hospitals and get tested. That introduces a huge bias already.
"You're citing that 0.5% figure incorrectly"
No I didn't, read what I wrote. And ALL numbers are projections. Even your calculation is a projection. Your calculation is an extraordinarily simplistic projection. Scientists hopefully make better projections, because they account for more influencing factors.
"The recent results that have shown 50% asymptomatic cases are not conclusive yet, because it's too soon to say that all of those people will never have symptoms"
What makes you so sure? It seems possible to make an estimate of when somebody got infected, especially in those studies of closed communities. After two weeks or so (scientists would determine a more prices number), it would be reasonable to assume they won't develop symptoms.
"Death rates change based on how well the healthcare system can keep up."
Not really, actually. At least I haven't seen a number of "people who died because they couldn't receive care" - do you have one? It seems possible that once health care systems are overwhelmed, more people die. But how often, if ever in this pandemic, has that point been reached? I don't think that often - there is no good treatment anyway.
"only a sample size of 500"
It's science. 500 can be a lot, or few. It was a sound and thorough study by acknowledged scientists.
The basis is studies of closed communities. Here in Germany there was a study of a whole village (testing everyone), that found a death rate of 0.37%. Other interesting data sets may be Diamond Princess cruise ship, Theodore Roosevelt carrier, or Health Care Workers.
So saying there is "no basis" is a bit rich. There may still be uncertainty.
Edit: this (just googled) article cites Diamong Princess to lead to an estimate of 0.5% death rate https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-outbreak-dia... (the percentage of deaths on the DP was higher, but the passengers were also comparatively old on average).
I'm not an expert on these things, but I like to try to break down things into simpler concepts.
I fear that in the reasoning like in the article, many things remain unclear or nontransparent.
Maybe there is an error in picking misleading metrics and running with them?
As an example, what if you were selling a product, and you were giving people unlimited credit to buy from you. Like you suppose everybody could buy a new iPhone on credit, that never needs to be paid back.
I can imagine iPhones selling like hotcakes in that scenario.
Now the question is, in that scenario, would Apple be doing great? They'd be selling a lot of iPhones, after all. And in the books, they would have the claim to a lot of money from the people who bought on credit.
Realistically, though, they might not be doing so great, because most of their customers would end up unable to actually pay back the credit.
Maybe something similar tends to happen on a larger scale, when the article says "a weak dollar is good for the economy" - it's just that "people" (in other countries) got access to free money to buy. Whether those sales turn out to be really good ones will only become clear in the long run. Money (dollars) is just debt, so "a weak dollar" may just mean it is cheap to borrow, a ka buy stuff for almost free.
I don't know what the best metric for understanding such a situation, but it seems to me simply calculating in dollar values is rather misleading. It is a much more complicated question involving the ability of debtors to actually pay what they owe.
So what conclusions should we draw from such an article? What is the point?
I personally don't feel qualified to intervene in such a relationship where god knows what psychological issues are preventing abuse victims from leaving.
If they have some actionable conclusions (even if it is just "we need more social workers" or whatever), I can behind that. But I suspect it is just a note in the general theme of hating on men, which the Guardian has very eagerly participated in for a while. So the takeaway from reading the article is just "men are bad and women are victims".
Afaik the UK is protestant because hundreds of years ago, some king wanted to divorce his wife and catholic faith wouldn't have allowed him to.
Just saying: the option for divorce has existed for a long time now.
How can a woman describe to a journalist how abusive her partner is, and not split up or get a divorce?
In most countries there is also some kind of social security, so women are not financially dependent on their partners anymore, either (not to mention the option to work themselves).
So what are we to make of such articles? Internalize more hatred of men? Go round knocking on doors, asking women "excuse me, should I beat up your husband"?
Maybe there are reasons that prevent women from leaving (and let's not forget many men are victims of domestic abuse, too). Then those reasons should be addressed. Those sob stories on "women have it so bad" don't do anybody any good.
And also, personal responsibility is a theme here. You are responsible for choosing your partner, and also for splitting if the partner turns out to be abusive.
Wasn't there a thing were deaths were recorded for the place where the person died, not where they normally live? So maybe those people just died in a hospital in another city? (I don't remember if this was for Italy, but I remember reading that about some place in connection with Corona).
In any case, why not make an effort to reach out to the cities in question and ask for an explanation?