Why is the Covid-19 fatality rate calculated based on no of total cases, not resolved cases?

the death rate is what proportion of people that get the virus die. Resolved cases is probably the least accurate metric because it doesn't include a lot of cases that were mild etc.

That the counting for resolved cases is lagging a lot. It probably only includes those that successfully were discharged from the hospital. It probably doesn't include all those people that were told to isolate and just got better. There probably isn't a means to successfully capture those numbers.

As you illustrate, thinking that's the fatality rate would be "very scary" - but it also isn't true.

to know how many people are actually infected at any given moment

And why Dr. F and many other professionals have stressed that the case mortality rate does not reflect the actual mortality rate (which is lower).

It is not going to change for Covid.

will have that data. Today we do not

Cancer uses a 5 year survival rate (Although many people announce they are "cancer free" -- and people accept that, see Justice Ginsburg -- well before 5 years).

have no such data set outside of current death totals as we have ZERO idea on how many are actually infected

We only know about cancer cases when the symptoms get back enough that someone goes to a doctor to check them out. If we tested all people we might find millions with some form of cancer at some early stage. With ordinary flu we only know those cases when people go to the doctor. How many millions, or tens of millions of cases, are out there that never get reported? We don't and can't know.

The only cases that get marked resolved in a timely fashion are those where the patient dies or gets discharged from a hospital (presumably after testing negative). The vast majority of non-hospitalized cases don't get timely followup.

... at https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213214523 and in the thread at https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213225036

Yes, it is scary. It's not as bad as those numbers imply because of how many cases are not counted AT ALL (whether because of inadequate testing, or people who get it and exhibit few if any symptoms and don't get treated), and that's going to skew the numbers up, but you're right, if you don't factor out all the cases that are yet to resolve one way or the other, you can have an artificially low percentage, especially when SO MANY of the diagnosed cases have been diagnosed so recently that it is way too soon to count them among "non fatal" cases, just because they haven't died yet.