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Comment by jerry1979 | Hacker News Reader

jerry1979

This is their math. See if you can see whats wrong...

  39,500,000 -- Pop. of California
  12.00%     -- Pct. of people who tested positive for covid
  4,740,000  -- Estimated cases (Pop. * Pct.)
  1,227      -- Reported deaths
  0.03%      -- Estimated chance of dying from covid in California (deaths/estimated cases)

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That math seems correct, you do have an extra space on the fourth line of your statistics.

The positive cases aren't a representative sample, as has been said 30 times in this thread. So line 3 is bad statistical reasoning, and completely invalidates their conclusion.

The only people who are getting tested are those who believe they have symptoms. This is beginning to change as we get more tests, and as a result, the % infected by their reasoning is decreasing day by day.

The math does not reflect reality. Why do you think 12% of Californians have covid? What impact does that have on the chance of dying stat?

Also, I fixed the space on the fourth line.

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