[marvin]

That's a much more reasonable interpretation of the available data, although there are still plenty of unknowns here, as sibling comments are pointing out. My interpretations the last week are converging on the same ballpark figures.

I'd just like to point out that this is still a far cry from the wishful thinking a lot of people are putting forth, claiming an IFR of < 0.1%, that 30% of the population have already had the disease and that herd immunity is both imminent and feasible.

These interpretations seem less likely to be true today than they did two weeks ago, and even then they were making assumptions on the optimistic side.

An IFR of 0.5% and a hospitalization rate in the high single digits is still a big frickin problem for society, when the disease has a reproduction number greater than 2 (and in the absence of countermeasures, more likely in the region 2-5).

[coliveira]

There is a very economical way to figure out this: test the majority of the US population. Sure, the government will have to spend a few billion dollars, but that would possibly save a few trillion dollars in GDP losses. The fact that people and businesses are not requiring this right now from the government makes my head explode!

[ummonk]

Yeah, claiming an IFR of 0.1% is laughable; it would mean everyone in NYC has been infected twice over.