April 25 - Robust Improvements; Jump in Positives in NYS

1. New 'heights' are re-affirmed as a sign of robust improvements. Yesterday's jump in positives is 're-balanced' today though some systemic increase of positives in NYS is noticeable over the last few days.

2. Days-to-Double:

• USA -- for both deaths and positives now at ~18 days;

• World -- for deaths now at ~23 days, for positives now at ~22 days.

3. Because of its importance, will repeat this point virtually unaltered from yesterday's post. The actual number of infected in NYS is a big open question especially when thinking of the second phase:

• The percentage of positives is ticking lower, now at 22% compared to ~40% a week ago;

• However, the number of observed deaths in NYS implies a much higher number of infected than the reported number of positives would suggest. Indeed, if the IFR (Infection Fatality Rate) for Covid-19 is at or below ~1%, then the observed deaths would imply ~x10 more infected than there are reported positives! Thus, the observed ~250,000 positives may in fact mean ~2.5 Million infected in NYS!

• In fact, the number of infected is probably even higher than that given the recent Lancent study that puts Covid-19 IFR lower than 1%, namely at ~0.66% (0.39-1.33).

• The antibody test results in NYS made public two days ago, suggest that ~14% of the population in NYS is infected. This is consistent with what we have been saying here for over a week now. In reality, probably 20-40% of NYS is infected, dominantly among the populations of NYC and Long Island.
  

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