Yeah, and as I already noted, this situation MEANS that these other countries are failing to control the infection because they are finding infections late, which is going to mean more deaths later.

> You cannot gauge effectiveness of treatment until you've given the treated time to recover or die.

Sure, I shouldn't imply Korea does just better treatment rather than that the treatment/test combination regime of Korea seems like the superior model relative to other countries and I think have mostly said that. We can see notably that the infection rate in Korea has dropped off markedly in the last few days.

I never disputed that.

> Sure, I shouldn't imply Korea does just better treatment

You didn't imply that. You stated explicitly that Korea does better treatment when that statement is based on a gross misunderstanding of CFR data and said you were going to spread that misinformation. ("I darn well intent [sic] to keep pointing to this.") That's the only thing that I took issue with.

> We can see notably that the infection rate in Korea has dropped off markedly in the last few days.

That has nothing to do with fatality rate.

"China and Korea have effectively dealt with the virus, infections in both those areas have been declining. And Korea now is effectively the lowest fatality rate for any of the effected countries which points to excellent surveillance and adequate treatment."

Instead of: "China and Korea have effectively treated the virus, infections in both those areas have been declining. And Korea now is effectively the lowest fatality rate for any of the effected countries which points to excellent surveillance and treatment."

But this isn't big change. Moreover, I think Korean model - ie, lots of testing - looks good in total and I think I've made clear that's what I advocate.

I would note in China's case, with infections declining everywhere, the fatality rate outside Hubei is fairly low also.

No, it doesn't. All it points to is that the cases are still active and have not had a chance to die. You cannot draw any other conclusions from that fatality data.

> I would note in China's case, with infections declining everywhere, the fatality rate outside Hubei is fairly low also.

For exactly the same reason. These infections are newer and have not had a chance to die. With each update, the CFR outside Hubei has increased, as expected.

> I think Korean model - ie, lots of testing - looks good in total

I agree that more testing is better. Why do you keep bringing this up? It has nothing to do with the fatality rate.

TL; DR; Without sufficient testing, hospitals get overwhelmed and death rate skyrockets. Is this "irrelevant".

...

My Gawd, you are the one who launched the massive detour on fatality rates. The topic of my first comment and topic of the OP was test, now like three days ago. You chimed in several posts down with the argument about immediate death rates not being final death, which I indeed didn't make my clear enough but which wasn't crucial to my point, which was and is about testing and related, about the Korean model being other countries should look to. I guess should say that Korean being at least adequate comes from my reading of press reports on Korea and not just statistical values but gruesomely technical do we want to get.

The thing is, I said from the start and I've clarified above, the fatality rate is an important proxy for how well a given country or area is doing as a combination of treatment and testing (but mostly testing). The infection rate is exponential everywhere the infection is not aggressively controlled so a high mortality rate means the country finding infection only having dying people walk in the doors of hospitals.

In that time, we've seen Italy, with a higher mortality rate spike in infections and mortality, now with 10x the death toll of Korea. And yes, as expected, the mortality rate in Korea is inching up but the infect rate is now steadily declining and it seems clear the total deaths there are going to be much less than Italy.

Yes, TESTING is my primary interest and advocating the Korean model related to that. The thing is that a look at the situation in Korea shows that the whole of society has mobilized, testing and treatment has been reorganized for the particular problems COVID presents - there are regular hospitals and COVID hospitals (or some equivalent).

It is irrelevant to the narrow question of whether the data show that Korea has reduced the fatality rate, which is the point being argued. Deaths from heart disease are irrelevant to the same discussion.

> My Gawd, you are the one who launched the massive detour on fatality rates.

It is not a detour. It is the single point being argued. You made an erroneous claim together with a statement that you intend to repeat it. I corrected that claim to prevent you from repeating it. When discussing that correction, it doesn't matter if you also made correct claims like that 2+2=4.