i don't understand the value of this multiplier. Case statistics are not an official census, it's incidental , depending on the criteria with which each region makes tests. Case numbers are unimportant, it's the total infections and consequent deaths that matter
You're probably right that they shouldn't be, but case statistics are regularly treated as an official census. I've seen many news articles in the vein that suchandsuch country is handling it better or worse because of their case numbers, or statistics like CFR that are computed from official case numbers.
That just doesn't seem true. In the US testing strategies are rapidly changing, since health officials indicate this will be essential to safely removing restrictions.
One reason is that early on when the curves looked pretty much exponential, folks were trying to pin down how bad it could get, and when. This was when the worst case scenario was for nearly the entire population to get it. I'm not quite sure we're completely out of that woods yet.
