Bocomo, I appreciate your viewpoint and value your opinion.
I do understand the dangers of overwhelming our hospital/healthcare system. One aspect to even consider is that we can build more beds, but we can't just create more doctors or nurses, or medical technicians. So, I do get that aspect.
How do you feel about the hospitalization rate of approx. 15%?
I do wonder how accurate that statistic can be when we seem to both agree that the 'death rate' statistic is....well....whatever we want to call it.
It's not that the death rate is wrong. Pond Boss answer: it depends. All these numbers depend critically on the availability of testing, the underlying age & health of the population it is infecting, as well as that population's ability to provide appropriate care. We still don't have the tests we were promised weeks ago so U.S. rates will float around. Compared to Italy, we are younger but we have worse health (obesity and diabetes are risk factors for poor COVID19 outcome) and less healthcare capacity. Projections of 200,000-2M deaths in the US are the consensus.
As for the case hospitalization rate, 15% is terrifying. It also seems like a good estimate to me. But you don't have to take my word for it...in NYC right now it's running around 20% as reported by NY public health.
