CDC estimates 140 million Americans have had COVID, about double case reports

About 37 million infected in omicron wave, and 58% of kids were infected at some point.

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[JohnDeL]

I'd feel less awful about the number if we didn't know that people could get COVID-19 multiple times.

At least we know for sure that getting vaccinated lessens the severity and significantly lessens the chances of dying from it.

Get vaccinated! (And boosted!)

 

[JohnDeL]

Back of the napkin calculations on US Covid deaths.

US Population
329,500,000

US Covid Deaths
949,000

US Population who had Covid
140,000,000

% of death for someone who has had covid
0.68%

chance of death for someone who has had covid
1 in 148

% of death for US popuplation
0.29%

chance of death for US population
1 in 347

Road deaths in US per year (average)
37,323

Years of Pandemic
2

Road deaths during pandemic
74,646

% chance of death from cars
0.05%

Chance of death from cars
1 in 1876

Calculations with citations: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0

Comparing COVID to another disease would be far more appropriate.

According to the CDC, there are approximately 41,000,000 cases of influenza in a bad year, with 52,000 deaths. That gives influenza a mortality rate of (52,000/41,000,000)=0.13% and an infection rate of (41,000,000/329,500,000)=12.4%

Using your numbers, COVID-19 has a mortality rate of (949,000/140,000,000)=0.68%, which is five times that of influenza, and an infection rate of (140,000,000/329,500,000)= 42.5%, which is roughly three times that of influenza.

In other words, COVID-19 is one of the deadliest plagues we've faced in a long, long time.