I can try to give you something straight. The key to epidemiology is the virology. If they are having twice the death rate of Wuhan in the early stages 3.7% you ought to be able to look at the germ and show why.
The virus kills three ways co-morbity, viral pneumonia and cytokine storm/septic shock. Some families/gene pools over produce the ACE2 receptor. Some families over produce the helper-2 t-cell. This is why it was important to know who is dying. Air pollution in Wuhan and 30 years of smoking coincides with an abundance of those receptors in the lungs and gut. Italy? What is going on there?
I have not seen the supporting data from Italy. I do not see anything in the germ to make it that lethal. Asian smokers over age 60 makes a lot of sense and matches the virology. If you only count the cases 80 years and older the CFR is 14.9%. Put everybody in the count and you get 1%. New England Journal of Medicine says <1%. Korean data suggested .87 cfr. This matches the virology/pathogenicity of HCoV-19/SARS-CoV-2.
Thank you in advance for any links or any contradiction from anyone at all but especially those who know the science. Flutracker is excellent. I am with John’s Hopkins on this. Thanks!
That is very informative and I greatly appreciate it. However, in addition to concerns about the morbidity rate I’m concerned about reports here which purport to be from doctors, stating that a fairly horrific health care situation is going on in Italy. I’m not really finding news reports of people being left for dead in hallways in Italy. Not that I will feel better knowing that a higher percentage of people are dying, but I will feel better if being a week or 2 behind Italy in the progression of this virus does not necessarily mean that we will find ourselves unable to obtain health care while patients and possibly some doctors drop like flies. As to the morbidity, at this point I’m completely confused as to whether this is a pure panic or a real disaster.