Is the China virus much less lethal than we thought?: Stanford study shows it might be

When figuring out how lethal a disease is two numbers are needed; the number of people who have died from the disease and the number of people who have had the disease.

Experts have known from the beginning that getting the number of people who've had the disease would be hard in the case of coronavirus because many people who have the disease show no or only very mild symptoms.

A recent study by Stanford indicates that we may be underestimating the size of the infected population by between a factor of 50 an 85.

Instead of testing for the virus itself the the new study tested for antibodies to the virus.  That lets doctors know if the person has ever had COVID19.  The regular test only determines if the person has the virus now.

The data is from April 1 and they estimated, based on a survey sample size of 3330 that roughly 48-81,000 people in Santa Clara county had or had had the virus.  But the confirmed number of cases was only 956.

While this result is not definitive, it has yet to be peer reviewed for example, it's indicative of the fact that the virus is much less lethal than the #FakeNews media is now portraying it to be.

Other small studies, one in Germany and one in New York, also indicate that the number of people who have had or have the disease is much much higher than the number of people diagnosed with the disease.

This is potentially good news.