Coronavirus Information...who do you trust?

[Belsnickel]

(09-16-2020, 04:11 PM)bfine32 Wrote: What if we don't know the true number infected? Wouldn't it be more conclusive to use a known number such as total population?

Not an attempt to mitigate the deaths just something that stuck my QA nerve.

So, for a QA/stats/data nerd it's important to look at many different numbers and think about these things, I get it being a stats/data nerd. The statistic I am specifically referring to is the case-fatality ratio, or CFR, which is a better statistic for understanding the danger of a given condition, especially one as new as COVID-19. It is only calculated based upon the cases of the condition, not the whole population. The reason the CFR is a better statistic for this data is because of the percentage of the population that has contracted it only being 2% at this time. Now, the cases are under reported, but the number is still not likely any higher than 3-4%.

Interestingly enough, the CFR is a better looking statistic for our COVD-19 response than using the crude death rate (CDR) which is based on deaths per 100,000 of the population. That number for us is around 60 per 100k, or 7th highest according to this JHU page, where with CFR we are 11th. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality

That says we are doing better at treating the disease than we are at containing the spread.

For the record, COVID-19's CDR is only lower than heart disease and cancer in this country. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db355.htm#:~:text=Data%20from%20the%20National%20Vital%20Statistics%20System&text=The%20age%2Dadjusted%20death%20rate,2017%20to%20723.6%20in%202018.