Studies Show Significant Drop in Mortality Rate Since Beginning of Pandemic

The Epoch Times ^ | October 26, 2020 | Paula Liu

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Two recent studies found that the rate of mortality has been dropping for hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

One of the studies was conducted on hospitalizations in the New York University Langone Health system between March and August. An author of the study, Leora Horwitz, also an associate professor at the Grossman School of Medicine at NYU, said that from the beginning of the pandemic until now, the mortality rate for patients infected with the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus has decreased significantly.

The study, which looked at over 5,000 patients inside the Langone Health system, discovered that in the study timeframe, the mortality rate decreased from 25.6 percent in March to 7.6 percent in August—an 18 percentage point decrease from the start of the pandemic.

According to the data, the median age was seen to have decreased over time, meaning that as time went on, most patients infected with the CCP virus were younger. Although that change seemed to partially explain the decreased mortality rate, it didn’t account for all of it.

“Even after risk adjustment for variety of clinical and demographic factors, including severity of illness at presentation, mortality was significantly and progressively lower over the course of the study period,” the study stated.

Patients of all ages experienced a decreased mortality rate. Among those, patients who were at or over the age of 75 saw the largest decrease, from just under 45 percent in the beginning of March to a under 10 percent in August.

The study also suggests that the decreased mortality may be in part due to a combination of factors such as increased clinical experience, decreased hospital volume, as well as more advanced treatment procedures, something that was seen in another study conducted in the United Kingdom.

Similarly, a second study (pdf) also conducted in the Alan Turing Institute in the United Kingdom, discovered similar results, whereby there was a sharp decrease in mortality rates over the course of the study period, which was between March 1 and May 30.

“There has been a substantial mortality improvement in people admitted to critical care with COVID-19 in England, with markedly lower mortality in people admitted in mid-April and May compared to earlier in the pandemic,” the study read.

As with Horwitz’s study, even after the adjustment made for the patient demographics, the decrease in mortality persisted, meaning that the demographic change isn’t likely the main cause of the mortality rate decrease.

“Possible causes include the introduction of effective treatments as part of clinical trials and a falling critical care burden,” the study read.

Bilal Mateen, one of the authors of the second England study conducted at the Alan Turing Institute, called it a silver lining, according to WBUR.

“I would classify this as a silver lining to what has been quite a hard time for many people. Clearly, there’s been something [that’s] gone on that’s improved the risk of individuals who go into these settings with COVID-19,” Mateen said.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

LIBERATE AMERICA! :)

[ConservativeDude]

once they stopped destroying lungs with the stupid ventilators, of course mortality went down

[JohnBrowdie]

deaths have been flat or decreasing since the first week of august, despite two spikes in new cases.

[nathanbedford]

I have been waiting for some days in the midst of this spike for the media to set the rising number of cases in the context of decreasing rate of death. Even Fox over the weekend has been flagrantly remiss in avoiding these corrective and reassuring data.

the mortality rate decreased from 25.6 percent in March to 7.6 percent in August—an 18 percentage point decrease from the start of the pandemic.

So the rate of mortality generally declined from 1 in 4 to 1 in 13.

patients who were at or over the age of 75 saw the largest decrease, from just under 45 percent in the beginning of March to under 10 percent in August.

So the rate of mortality among the coterie that most affects me decreased from nearly 1 in 2 to 1 in 10. I for one am willing to wait a while longer.

I'm astonished that the President in his debate and on the stump or Vice President Pence in his debate and in his interview with Mark Levin last night failed to emphasize this context which must have been known to both of them.

[Grampa Dave]

According to the data, the median age was seen to have decreased over time, meaning that as time went on, most patients infected with the CCP virus were younger. Although that change seemed to partially explain the decreased mortality rate, it didn’t account for all of it.

“Even after risk adjustment for variety of clinical and demographic factors, including severity of illness at presentation, mortality was significantly and progressively lower over the course of the study period,” the study stated.

Patients of all ages experienced a decreased mortality rate. Among those, patients who were at or over the age of 75 saw the largest decrease, from just under 45 percent in the beginning of March to a under 10 percent in August.

Please check my tagline!

[webheart]

once they stopped destroying lungs with the stupid ventilators, of course mortality went down

If ever there were a post which could deserve multiple posting, this is one.

[webheart]

once they stopped destroying lungs with the stupid ventilators, of course mortality went down

If ever there were a post which could deserve multiple posting, this is one.

[TexasFreeper2009]

once they stopped purposely killing the early patients because they feared they wouldn’t have bed for the incoming masses... yeah... deaths rates dropped!

[Sicon]

Stuck in a waiting room. Tamron Hall show is on the TV. Wow. I have never seen this level of COVID fear porn, anywhere, ever! The whole show is COVID terror, complete with ominous music, people telling their regretful tales of having had the temerity to go out and associate with other people, then allegedly getting or spreading COVID.

Holy crap! What a total sh*t show!

[AppyPappy]

Or once they started actually treating people immediately.

[AZJeep]

Of course!
We learned a lot how to cure Covid!
It seems also that the virus mutated to be less lethal. That is actually natural. The best chances for survival have the totally harmless bugs. The lethal ones get eradicated eventually.

[mdmathis6]

Actually the mortality rate of those who actually contract a case of covid as certified which progress to a resolution as being certified as recovered or as having died of covid 19 has dropped from 30 percent to about 4 percent world wide.

It was because in the first 2 months or so we had a higher ratio of folks dying of the disease than we had of folks who had recovered defined under the phrase “resolved cases”.

Resolved cases=(recovered + dead). Later on as more recovered than died we would then get a picture of the true mortality of the disease at least in those who actually contracted a “certified case”.

This does not mean that 4 per cent of the US will die of covid; it does mean that as of right now of all those who actually get the disease, 4.5 per cent are expected to perish.

That is my current read from various sources that cite the number of resolved cases(recovered + dead) and the dead.

You can take the dead and divide it from the total resolved cases to get your mortality rate of those who catch the disease or....covid dead/(recovered + dead)=mortality rate.

I calculate that currently our USA rate is 4.5 percent of those who catch the disease but many areas are lagging in reporting their “recovered” numbers vs their dead numbers. The total world rate is about 3.7 percent of those who ACTUALLY catch the disease. In reality most folks will not go on to catch anything at all or may never get tested. So the overall mortality rate of those who caught the disease and those who never got it or had it and never got tested will probably be down into the decimal place percentages were it ever possible to calculate such numbers precisely.

[2aProtectsTheRest]

Smallpox was extremely lethal for ~3,500 years. Polio was ugly as well. Pertussis (Whooping Cough), rabies, ebola, hantavirus, anthrax, HIV... none of them seem to be familiar with your theory about how viruses mutate to become less lethal over time. Influenza the same thing. 12,000 deaths in the 2011 season, but 43,000 deaths the following year.

It’s almost as though your theory has zero evidence to support it in the real world. Hmm...

[2aProtectsTheRest]

The Infection Fatality Rate for COVID-19 is 0.65%. The 3-4% Case Fatality Rate is utterly meaningless and overblown. It’s also highly variable. It’s gone up and down since March. But the IFR remains largely unchanged.

New treatment protocols do seem to be having a very positive effect on the severe cases. That will definitely help drive down the death toll. Good news while we await President Trump’s announcement of an approved safe and effective vaccine.

[mdmathis6]

It’s overblown only if you don’t ever get the disease. It’s not overblown for those who catch the disease who go on to progress to more serious symptoms. My hospital where I work is not filled with covid patients but a third of the ICU where I work is filled with very sick covid patients and about another 1/2 of a 35 bed medical telemetry floor has less ill patients, most of whom will get better and go out the door. The ones who get worse come to us and when they get to us about 60 per cent end up dying.

Now the surrounding city and suburbs will have many people who will never get sick with it or if they ever did it will have been mild and they never would’ve gotten tested. So I hate the fear porn as much as any one else and I do understand that even though we’ve had an increase of actual covid admissions recently that it doesn’t mean that we are all doomed. Younger nurses can fall into that trap but they don’t have the perspective that having worked as an RN 35 years can bring. A hospital is an artificial microcosm and not representative of the world at large ...we see more sick people including the very sick covid patients because that is where the sick of our community will come.

Masks are a placebo in most cases; they are only useful for a limited time in helping to contain droplets not aerosolized virii and need to be changed every 2 hours when they get too moist. N95’s do better especially in rooms with patient with tuberculosis but they don’t contain aerosolized virus, just droplets.

The world case mortality rate has been stuck around 4 per cent as has the USA rate. The needle has pegged a bit up and down that is true but that “jigging’ has more to do with lagging data that gets updated in fits and starts.

From a political perspective I think it is important for governments to look at the infection fatality rate in terms of whether or not to open or close the economy...I think based on that number we should open up completely while stressing good health habits and to stay home when sick and just do the prudent things we have always done, whether sick with flu or norovirus.

Case mortality rates are important for the medical profession and for hospital planners whose hospitals may from time to time may experience the “variable ups and downs” in the covid admissions rates in a given community even if the nation’s over all infection mortality rate remains stable. Right now we could use a further drop in the overall infection mortality rate,more defined I guess as the expected infection “contraction” rate. The case mortality rate seems still stuck at 4 percent over all.

(15 percent of covid cases seem to get sick enough to be hospitalized; it is from that 15 percent we get the over all 4 percent who will die.We are currently seeing about 60 percent of our icu covid patients die once they get there but most of those are older than 65 and/or have bad co-morbidities).

[Go_Raiders]

The virus did NOT mutate for the vast majority of infections being seen today. This has been shown repeatedly.

What has happened is what always happens in a pandemic. The people being infected now are more robust, with more resilient immune systems and cross immunity due to other previous viral infections.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6505/846

Every pandemic looks horrible at first, because the first people infected in any given area are the most vulnerable, with the weakest immune systems. They skew the morbidity and mortality rate tremendously.

As time goes on the virus runs out of low hanging fruit, spread slows and mortality and morbidity decline. The virus doesn’t change, the remaining unexposed population does.

That’s why locking down healthy populations increases the number of people who eventually die. You need to have the healthy, resistant individuals exposed and recovered as early as possible, so they won’t be potential spreaders later on. That way the time that the vulnerable need to be sheltered is decreased, so fewer will die.

[2aProtectsTheRest]

I’m focused on the population as a whole; not specifically the sickest of the sick. Yes, if you wind up in the ICU, your chances are really quite poor and it’s a very serious illness. But the IFR is 0.65%. It’s worse than the flu, but it’s no smallpox.

Current US CFR is 2.59%. Yes, we have a lot of undiagnosed COVID-19 deaths (likely around 40,000) from early on when identification was difficult to impossible. But the definition of CFR is diagnosed deaths over diagnosed cases. 230,557 attributed deaths / 8,898,727 confirmed cases = 2.59% CFR. Them’s the numbers. It was ~4% in April, 3% in June, and now it’s in the 2s. IFR is still 0.65% in every study I’ve seen. As we get better at catching asymptomatic cases mildly symptomatic cases, CFR will continue to drop.

A properly made, properly worn mask (even a simple surgical mask) reduces the range and volume of respiratory droplets, which remain the primary source of SARS-CoV-2 transmission between persons. Aerosolized transmission is theoretically possible, but likely a very small portion of cases. The R0 demonstrates that nicely. If aerosolized transmission were a primary vector with SARS-CoV-2, it would be the lowest R0 of any aerosolized virus in history at 2.5. So respiratory droplet control remains the best way to limit transmission and that means wearing a decent mask while indoors in public places. It’s a REDUCTION in risk; not a perfect barrier.

Yes, businesses should be open, but it would make sense to adopt Sweden’s model of limitations in higher risk scenarios to help control transmission. And while I’m fully against mask mandates, I also think wearing a mask while indoors in a public place is a good idea and if everyone did it, we’d reduce transmission numbers significantly. Even under a mask mandate, many people don’t wear them. In fact, many will refuse to wear a mask BECAUSE of the mandate. They’ll then go on to say masks don’t work because case numbers climb even as they and all their friends and family run around town refusing to wear masks in the first place. Yes, if you don’t do it, it doesn’t work. If I don’t hit my brakes, my car doesn’t stop. That doesn’t mean car brakes are ineffective.

[mdmathis6]

Sure...politicians need to look at the IFR to make whole national policy. But even an IFR of 0.65% nationally, can mean stress on given local hospital systems who may be experiencing IFR’s of 1-2 per cent temporarily due to a spike in infections which means service delays and and increase of deaths locally due to other causes..That is why we had the ‘flatten the curve movement’ which allowed hospitals to be able to reconfigure and plan services better. Now we can better deal with any spikes and still do other services without closing down surgeries and cancer treatments ect. Still capacities are strained locally right now but in a few weeks we’ll see again a reduction of covid illness as many who will catch it will get better after 10-15 days and the hospital admission rates for the sickest covid will fall off.
Just in time for the post election period...ironies of ironies!

We just have to surf the waves when they come at us dude...!LOL!

Cheers and keep the Faith!

[daniel1212]

Notice how the media focuses on the ever increasing case count, yet the overall fatality fatality rate for US is 0.069% ( mainly due to NE states) and decreasing. Toggle columns to see the ranking in order to magnitude. https://infectionrank.org/ lists the US, under USA,

Meanwhile an estimated 1,200 children died in the 2012-2013 flu season [https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/faq.htm] while as of Oct 23 2020 the CDC says that there have been only 101 COVID-assigned deaths among children under 18 [https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#demographics] out of almost 230,000 COVID-19 deaths nationwide.

And with 92% of all Covid-19 deaths being among those 55 and older [https://lawliberty.org/covids-age-discrimination], with almost all of such having 2 or more Comorbidities [https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm#Comorbidities] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7327471] and 95% being among those 50 and over.

In addition, less than 10 percent of domestic COVID-19 *cases* have been among children under 18 (reported 9–11) [https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200910/Over-half-a-million-reported-child-COVID-19-cases-in-the-United-States.aspx] while the vast majority of all persons with severe COVID tend to have other risk factors.[https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6915e3.htm?s_cid=mm6915e3_w]

Furthermore up to 90% of persons testing positive via PCR tests have such a low viral load that they judged as not likely to be contagious, [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.html]

Finally, the long-term costs in physical and mental health and finances due to this all-ages drastic restrictions when are tremendous.[https://therevolutionaryact.com/studies-the-shutdown-is-not-lives-vs-dollars-its-lives-vs-lives]

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Excellent post. Thanks for adding that, Daniel!