Hi Tim,
For those of us who are math challenged, are you dividing the number of deaths by the estimated number of positive cases or is there something I’m missing. It seems impossible to account for all the people who have been infected and recovered without testing. Thanks

@73jazzbass. I'm not sure I can persuade you of what I believe is true, but I'll try.

First, don't assume that the number of reported deaths is of any value. In any other year, almost all of them would have been recorded as heart disease, tuberculosis, diabetes, cancer....as well as the flu. Notice how few flu deaths are reported this year. For political or whatever other reasons, almost every death from any cause is being recorded as COVID-19.

Secondly, if you understand that an Ro of 5.7 in 2.5 days means that the entire World was exposed to SARS-CoV2, which causes COVID-19, before New Years Day 2020, except highly isolated enclaves, like islands with no flights. And except for Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, almost no other countries started responding to the undefined threat until around the 1st of February. So that means the base is probably more like the population of the World. Most researchers are beginning to suspect this when they now say they think the base might be 80 times the reported cases. I believe it is far higher than they report, but are unwilling in this political climate to admit.

Thirdly, the data clearly shows that unless you are a smoker or have some serious pre-existing condition, you have less than an 1% chance of the virus killing you.

So a very small number of deaths actually attributable to the virus - especially in healthy people, and a very large number of asymptomatic cases. What numbers would you use?

No persuading necessary. I was just wondering if there was a formula that was more on target than simply dividing the number of “covid related deaths” by the estimated amount of those infected. I wasn’t calling you out at all, just tapping your knowledge. I’m not familiar with the Ro factor which makes sense.