New Imperial model - estimated 2.7% of the UK have been infected

[TheReelSlimShady]

So the modellers at Imperial have released a new paper:

www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-Europe-estimates-and-NPI-impact-30-03-2020.pdf

The really interesting part is the table on page 6 which estimates the infected population (and a 95% Confidence Interval) with the mean at 2.7%.

That would mean somewhere approaching 200,000 are infected, compared to the actual number of identified cases is around 22,000.

Remember this is just a model, with lots of caveats, but based on lots of emerging data. If so, it means the mortality rate is likely to be a lot lower than previously thought - even taking into the account the lag effect of reported deaths.

Interesting reading nonetheless.

Bored of the models now. Start testing and hit us with some facts.

2.7% of the population is way more than 200000. It’s more like 1.7million.

Thanks, TheReelSlimShady.

It seems that they've estimated R0 to be 3.87.That's not great news as it pushes the herd immunity threshold higher.

I think Neil Ferguson said earlier that the percentage infected in London could be as high as 5%, so 450k people in London alone.

That seems low to me. I know loads of people who have or have had Coronavirus symptoms. But I'm on the edge of London so perhaps that skews things.

I wish they would hurry up with widespread testing.

I think all the statistics are pretty meaningless without widespread testing.

Hopefully we will get a clearer picture in the coming weeks and months.

At the moment people are very frightened by what look like extremely high mortality rates.

But the number of people who have died and who are expected to die bears no relation to any meaningful number of people who have or have had the virus.