It's simply intellectual bs to try and figure the number infected by reported cases. Trump didn't want tests, so we don't have tests. Hospitalization rates may be a better measure, but even there not all rural states have hospitals for the most rural. And not everyone hospitalized is on a ventilator. Probably if you're sick enough to need oxygen, IV fluids, and the best of the anti-shityourselftodeath and coughyourselftodeath death, you have a better chance of living if you get to a hospital. But even if you don't get to a hospital, probably you might have a chance to live.
But it may turn out in the end that death rates are the most accurate measure we'll have as to where the virus went and how much.
I'm assuming the Trump clusterfuck will still let us end up with a test for all Americans to determine whether they show anti-bodies, and whether they might benefit from a vaccine based on blood/hemoglobin of previously infected persons … sort of like what we had for small pox in the early part of the previous century.
