We could also look at road accidents to determine that cars are also dangerous, but how dangerous is determined by data.
Stupid example. We have done that. We have looked at car accidents and reduced the three fold while having more than 5 times as many miles driven.
The infection rate determines the model and how high the curve goes. Don't want to sound funny but if you're experienced in epidemiology like you claim to be, you would know that. That is why I ignore you. A doctor would never scare monger like you did. For example, if the UK had a 84% infection rate, there wards wouldn't even be overwhelmed. Italy has a high average age. That is a factor. Again data. What do you have? Bullshit and a lie.
It is astonishing to me that you are unable to understand a simple premise. I understand that young people like you are looking for reassurance. You are not going to get it from me or any other responsible medical person. Read my post again. You said:
The simple matter is we do not have the data to determine just how dangerous this pandemic is.
And I said that we did. We know how dangerous it is to each and every patient. You are not a public health person and it is not your job to evaluate these data and formulate the public response. Your job is to protect yourself, your loved ones and others. That is it. If, as a hobby, you want to try and google some reassurance go ahead. But if you look at that data and decide to defy the control measures that have been put in place you are a danger to others.
I will skip your personal insults. They are just ignorant. Others are welcome to decide what they want about my posts. But. Try and articulate this for us Einstein. Tell us why governments are tanking their economies if this is just a bump in the road. Serious people from every medical discipline and every epidemiologist in the world except for a few crackpots are shouting social isolation and wartime level response to this very real crisis. If there is not the threat that we imagine why are we cooking the books? To what end? To serve what financial or political end?
Get your head out of your ass and do what you are told. There will be plenty of time later on to kvetch over numbers that all but a very few people do not really understand at all.
But just to make you feel better, tomorrow I will tell a prospective patient that you think this disease is not that dangerous because we do not know what the "real numbers" are. I am sure it will make him/her feel a lot better.
The experts are asking for more data. Their advice is on the side of caution. I am just fed up with people thinking that if we don't lockdown we're all dead, when the truth of the matter is lockdown only slows the infection rate and will more likely than not have little effect on percentage of those infected.
Your hyperbolic answer is noted. Of course none of what you said is true particularly the last part.
Lockdown very well may have an effect on the percentage of those infected. A big one. It also buys time to discover effective treatment modalities and develop vaccines. It allows us to effectively treat the patients who present with the disease using facilities and people we have now and it allows us to marshal resources for the future. So what you said is simply wrong it part and in whole. And can you give me the name of a single person who believes "we're all dead".
Just a note to everyone else. Do not believe what I or anyone else says on this forum. I have said this again and again. Boyce us right on that. We may all be teenagers too lazy to look at porn. Listen to your family doctor and your public health officials. And nobody else. This forum is a means of entertainment and if you get what you believe is good information from it that is a fortunate coincidence.