"relying" on the Worldometer stats, in the USA, we have now tested 4.3 M people (1.2%) biased to outbreak areas rather than a uniform survey of Americans. We report 0.2% positive cases in the nation....850k total. We fear a large number of "asymptomatic" carriers out and about, that's why we think it good to do the isolation/social distance. Maybe as many as 95% of Covid infectives unknown/undetectable vaping out invisible covid globules to folks nearby. infective slime accumulating on every surface near where they stand.
Here's my attempt to unmask these irrational notions that are driving public policies.
If we have say 0.2 %(1 in 500) persons known to have the virus, some dead.... some over with it, no doubt, and if 90% of the infected are presently undetected, we would have 1.8 % (1 in 55) people presently infective carriers prowling about spreading the disease. That's 6.5M people out there with the virus. If we do a million tests in three days, and come up with 80k new cases, if they were a random set correspondent to the whole of the US, that's a positive rate of 8%. That would mean in all the US, we have 29 M infective carriers. So of course, we have to realize that maybe 80% of the tests are going to symptomatic folks, and most of those tests are still negative (less than 20% positive) So I say the 90% undetected is just wrong. The virus is not that inconsequential, but it is also not spreading exponentially. I think it safe to say that our stats are falsified by maybe 10% to 20% positive covid cases, and that maybe the death reports are inflated due to other real causes of death that would have been deaths for cause, but even taking the stats as given, the number of infective carriers we're hiding from is less than 1 in 200 people, with each infective maybe capable of infecting a large number of people if in contact with them. So, somewhere between Panic and Denial we need to find some line of reason.
Hard to say how much of our stats are due to better testing, and discovery of positives versus the already ill patients coming in to the doctors. But with testing 300 k/d, we are still at 25K new cases per day, as we were on March 31 with sketchy testing. But obviously, we are catching some cases earlier through testing, and thus better able to treat them effectively. But my guess is we have maybe half the infective population "out there", which combined with people's general caution will mean a lower transmission factor than we had around March 15. I also think we still under reporting recovered cases by half the claimed stat. But we are clearly way over the worst of the danger already, and there is room to discuss how to get back to productive work. A lot of people can go back to work now.
Just keep ramping up the testing. antibody and antigen/PCR tests, a couple million a day. Test business work groups, and let them go to work. With social distancing precautions in place, with masks. Without Mass Transit.....or with social distancing and testing measures, say temp measurements with those nifty laser thingys.