Originally Posted by Excargodog

The mortality rate may not actually be dropping, but it is revealing itself. And it is revealing itself to not be nearly as bad as what was originally feared. The population studies out of Iceland where over 3% of the population has been tested reveal that half of the infected are totally asymptomatic, and in most other countries are not even being identified at all. While that does nothing about the NUMBER who are dying, it cuts the RATE in half. With universal testing it seems likely that the true rate will end up down around 0.3-0.4%, a huge improvement from the initial 2-3% mortality rate being used in many of the epidemiological models based upon early mortality figures.

and yeah, while all those asymptomatic people running around feeling well but potentially spreading the virus has its own set of negatives, it does indeed bring the fatality rate down and hastens the day when there won’t be enough susceptibles out there to sustain the epidemic and it will start to burn itself out.