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Comment by khuey | Hacker News Reader

The CFR in Italy is nearly 13%. Even if you make incredibly generous assumptions that there are no unreported deaths and they're only catching 10% of cases that still leaves the infection fatality rate at twice the number you propose

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That's almost certainly untrue. Recent studies have show that as many as 38% of the Italian population has been infected at this point [1]. That gives a fatality rate 0.03%. Let's say the official death count is 10x undercounting, you're still left with 0.3%.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/CoronavirusUK/comments/fxgk8q/early...

This published scientific article shows you why the CFR in Italy is so high -- and why it doesn't apply to the general population: http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2763667

Takeaways: Old population, Pre-existing conditions, Skewed testing

Testing is severely undercounting cases here. People who just experience fever are told to self-isolate and aren't tested. Not all of these (luckily) end up hospitalized, so those are never, ever counted.

With an older population, a problematic medical system, and being caught totally unprepared, isn't Italy the worst case scenario? I don't think it would be representative of what's going to happen in other countries from here on out.

I don't know where this meme came from that Italy has a "problematic medical system" but that's certainly not true in Lombardy.

The US has a population riddled with comorbitities (obesity, heart disease, diabetes, etc.), a problematic medical system, and was caught totally unprepared. Isn't the US the worst case scenario, with the most deaths and most infections in the world?

>Isn't the US the worst case scenario, with the most deaths and most infections in the world?

Adjust your numbers for population. Per capita numbers for the US are far from the worse case scenario.

You pretty much just described the US.

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