April 22 2020
THIS IS A PARTIAL REPOST FROM MEDSCAPE.COM
As of April 20, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control counted more than 300 cases of COVID-19 per million people worldwide, according to Our World in Data, or about 0.03% of the world population.
In the United States, nearly 2300 people per million have been infected, about 0.2% of the population nationwide, but the proportion of people who have had COVID-19 varies by state.
Cumulative COVID-19 cases range from less than 45 infected people per 100,000 in Alaska (less than half a percent of the population) to nearly 1220 per 100,000 in New York (about 1.2% of the state population), according to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
Medscape asked medical professionals 10 questions to estimate what they think about real rates of COVID-19. Here are select answers where I was in the majority of 5,784 respondents:
Question 1. Based on what you are seeing in your practice, do you think the actual proportions of people who have been infected are...
Answer 1: 76% of the physicians think that actual numbers are higher than reported.
Question 5: What percentage of people do you think have been infected with coronavirus in hotspots like New York City and northern Italy?
Answer 5:
28% (the largest fraction) of the physicians think that greater than 20% of population have been infected;
22% think that between 10-20% are infected;
20% think that between 5-9% are infected;
16% think that between 3-4% are infected;
12% think that between 1-2% are infected;
Only 2% of physicians think that less than 1% is infected.