This data point seemed important to me and worth a short immediate note. We have just had released the reasonably sized antibody test from an area of high infection.
The rate of infection in New York is estimated to be 14%.
This implies around 2.7m people in NY State have had the virus.
A little over 20,000 are reported to have died from COVID.
This gives a mortality rate of 0.8%
We know that the number of deaths is likely to be underestimated due to people dying at home or never being tested, so the actual mortality rate would be higher than this.
Perhaps 1% is still the best estimate.
This data confirms the studies from around the world and means that the models we have been working with look to have the correct parameters. It makes the idea that the mortality rate is far lower even more implausible.
Applied Macro 