That Iceland’s currently 1% infected as of now doesn’t say anything about how infected it would be after a few weeks of no-special-controls measures (comparable to folks’ behavior in a regular flu season). This is the beginning of this virus’s worldwide course. It’s dishonest to compare a snapshot now with the accumulated total of a whole flu sason.
Perhaps this isn’t clear enough from the title (but should be clear from the post), that the similarity I”m discussing is in terms of outcomes given illness: IFR and IHR.
Absent controls and behavioral changes, I agree that it seems likely that considerably more than 1% of the population would be infected. Seasonal flu infects perhaps 10%. It’s clear at this point that C19 is often asymptomatic/mild especially in younger people, and I recall some potential bio explanations like pre-existing partial immunity through cross reactive antigens. On the DP we know about 30% were infected and it could be higher—perhaps 50%, but that population is half retirees. So from this evidence alone my estimate is somewhere between 10% to 50% would be infected absent any behavioral changes.
That Iceland’s currently 1% infected as of now doesn’t say anything about how infected it would be after a few weeks of no-special-controls measures (comparable to folks’ behavior in a regular flu season). This is the beginning of this virus’s worldwide course. It’s dishonest to compare a snapshot now with the accumulated total of a whole flu sason.
Perhaps this isn’t clear enough from the title (but should be clear from the post), that the similarity I”m discussing is in terms of outcomes given illness: IFR and IHR.
Absent controls and behavioral changes, I agree that it seems likely that considerably more than 1% of the population would be infected. Seasonal flu infects perhaps 10%. It’s clear at this point that C19 is often asymptomatic/mild especially in younger people, and I recall some potential bio explanations like pre-existing partial immunity through cross reactive antigens. On the DP we know about 30% were infected and it could be higher—perhaps 50%, but that population is half retirees. So from this evidence alone my estimate is somewhere between 10% to 50% would be infected absent any behavioral changes.
However social distancing appears to have already be crushing fever prevalence in the US.