To share some numbers for Arkansas. As a state we are having a huge increase in positives that mostly come from poultry plants and prisons. Of course those people interact with other people and then it becomes community spread, so they are a concern even though most of the numbers come from a small area.
First off, we know many people have no symptoms and will not get tested unless they are forced to by their job. So we know the known positive number is less than the real number. We just don't have any idea what that real number is.
Using the known numbers, Arkansas has a hospitalization rate of 7% and a mortality rate of 1.3%.
Now, lets just say there's at least 20% more positive who haven't been tested, that would reduce those rates to 5.9% and 1.1%. Who knows what the real number is. Maybe it's as high as 50% more who've had it as compared to who's tested positive. The hospitalization and mortality rates could be quite a bit less.
Will be interesting to see where the numbers are several months from now to see if it's trending up or down.
