(08-09-2020 10:04 AM)XLance Wrote: In North Carolina there have been 135,000 confirmed cases of COVID (NC population is about 10.5 Million)
Of those 135,000 there have been (as of today) 2,184 deaths (attributed to but not verified from COVID).
So at that rate, if 60% of North Carolina's population is infected, 170,000 North Carolinians would die. Though, of course, North Carolina is near it's peak rate of new cases per day, and mortality lags infections by two to four weeks, so the average case fatality rate is going to rise above 1.6%.
On a national scale, obviously the large majority of those cases are preventable cases, so the large majority of those deaths were preventable deaths ... but on a state scale, it's not so clear. While North Carolina has a testing positivity rate just below 6%, it borders on South Carolina with a 13%+ testing positivity rate, Georgia with an 11%+ testing positivity rate, Tennessee with an 8%+ rate and Virginia with an 8%+ rate, so even if it continues to the downward trend of infections, it's going to be vulnerable to imported cases kicking off a new round.
And of course a 5.9% testing positivity rate suggests that there might be a bit of undertesting in North Carolina, so the confirmed cases may be an undercount. Depending on how deaths are recorded, if the count is only those where covid19 is listed as a cause of death, then undercounted cases leads to undercounted mortality.
Anytime that we are looking at a 20% bump on normal total mortality from all causes coming from a single cause, and it is obvious from our earlier experience this year that without any policy actions at all it will easily double, then double again, then double again ... that is indeed a staggering potential death rate from following a "lol, yolo" policy response.