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It is what it is. When talking about the fatality rate of various diseases, CFR is what is quoted. Again, the poster I was replying to was clearly talking about CFR, and so was I. Calling it a meaningless number is a side issue. You appeared to be saying that I was confusing CFR with the actual...

Yup. I've never seen rubbing alcohol that wasn't well over 50% isopropyl - 70% is typical. Always a good idea to read the label first though.

Not sure what your point is. @chemgeek's wording was "over a million confirmed cases" (emphasis mine). 100,000 fatalities out of 1 million confirmed cases is a 10% CFR, by definition. No confusion there. (Could be smaller than 10% since he said over a million, but I assume less than 2 million...

100,000 deaths out of 1 million cases is a 10% CFR... sounds like that estimate assumes that the health system gets overwhelmed to the point where the critically ill can't get adequate care. That is really a nightmare scenario. :( Other than that, I agree with everything you say, though.

Rubbing alcohol, which is mostly isopropyl, should be fine... but in most places it seems to be unobtainium, due to panic buying. :(

Yes. By my estimates, Vermont's doubling rate has increased from 2.4 days a week ago to 5.2 days as of yesterday. One week after lockdown seems a little soon for it to be entirely due to that, but people may have been isolating effectively even before the order came. Only time will tell for...

As was I using Vermont (even though I do live there) as an example of a state where the incidence is currently at a low level, but which is taking the problem very seriously, and for good reason. Exactly, and unlike tornadoes (to strain the analogy), people can travel from pretty much anywhere...

Well, not exactly. I'm not familiar with the situation in Maine, but in Vermont, while there may not be a tornado of COVID-19 cases, there have been 256 confirmed cases, and clear evidence of community transmission. If the number of cases explodes, our rather limited hospital resources here...

I must be in a weird mood, because I couldn't stop laughing.

I certainly wouldn't argue that influenza isn't a serious disease! But your numbers come down to a 0.2% CFR... still an order of magnitude lower than what we think the CFR for COVID-19 is.

i.e., 2^16 + 2^5. ;)

Because of where we are now, there is no easy solution that I know of. I think we are doing the best we can under the circumstances, having failed to make widespread testing availability a priority early on. I've said before that I think we should prioritize: widespread testing availability for...

The three big differences for influenza are 1) we have vaccines against most strains that are at least somewhat effective; 2) we have effective antivirals against most strains; 3) the case fatality rate for nearly all strains is at least an order of magnitude lower than for SARS-CoV-2. This was...

15% of the 20% would be 3% of the population. And what does "various ages and health" mean? I'm sorry, but I am totally unable to figure out what the point of this information is. There is no way of knowing who is at risk and who is not without testing for antibodies. The 20% who will require...

2ax + b. But ax^2 + bx + c is quadratic, not exponential. The first derivative of an exponential function is exponential, as is the 2nd derivative, and ...

If "it" means the total number of cases that have occurred, "it" will eventually flatten to a horizontal line. (Though in principle, the y-value of that line could be the entire population of Earth - probably not though, since many infections have not been counted as "cases".)

The one we have been hearing where? The use of "exponential" by epidemiologists when talking about the pandemic is most definitely definition 2.

I posted on Brian's board that over the last two days, the Vermont data is showing signs of flattening. If I take only the data from Thursday through Saturday, the doubling time appears to be 4.8 days. Still too early to say whether this is truly a trend, but it is somewhat encouraging.

In this context (pandemic), exponential is being used because it is accurate, at least in the early stages.

The problem is that we do not really know who is at risk and who isn't. The criteria that are being quoted are over 60, and with underlying health conditions puts you at risk. But there have many a number of recent cases of people under 60, even under 50, with no known underlying health...