Mortality rate of coronavirus vs seasonal flu (vanity)

3/16/20 | tatown

[God luvs America]

you’re correct, it is a theory. But to sit on the number presently being touted as “confirmed cases” and believe those are the only cases in the country is sheer insanity...

[gbs]

Here you go, Nobel Laurette, Stanford Biophysicist Professor
Interview
Corona Is Slowing Down, Humanity Will Survive, Says Biophysicist Michael Levitt
You should read this!

[daniel1212]

You my be interested in this: The epidemic you (likely) were not made aware of: 80,000 Americans dead; deaths at or above the epidemic threshold for 16 consecutive weeks ..

More .

[JayGalt]

I wasn’t claiming that the confirmed are the only cases.
I was suggesting that postulating a large pool of cases that have not been identified seems logical but the hypothesis is not borne out yet by the findings on testing since the negative rate is so high.
That’s like saying I’m giving it a lower probability but leaving my mind open

[AppyPappy]

You can’t really compare the two because the infection/death rate for the flu is so much smaller. If the flu had the same death rate as Corona, there would be 1.2M dead every year from the flu.

Besides, we have a flu vaccine.

[AppyPappy]

Perhaps but we also don’t know how many people died from Corona. It’s best to stick with what you know.

[God luvs America]

i would give 1000-to-1 odds the numbers of those who died of the wuhan flu is 99% more accurate than the actual number of people who presently have the wuhan flu...

[AppyPappy]

It’s like betting on a horse that you only know exists.

My coworker is from Wuhan. She knows someone who died from it. What are the chances of that in a country that large?

The kids call it “Boomer Flu” or “Boomercide”. How’s that for a cheery thought.

[God luvs America]

“My coworker is from Wuhan. She knows someone who died from it. What are the chances of that in a country that large?”

I’m from NY- a buddy of mine was killed on 9-11...what’s your point??

[AppyPappy]

That you don’t want 9/11 to happen every day

[daniel1212]

You can’t really compare the two because the infection/death rate for the flu is so much smaller. If the flu had the same death rate as Corona, there would be 1.2M dead every year from the flu. Besides, we have a flu vaccine.

If you eliminate the outlier 48 in Wash. (NY is next at 10) then you have 39 dead out of 4,565 of Covid-19 as of 6p. How about the infection/death rate for the 2017-18 flu season in the US when the percentage of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza (P&I) was at or above the epidemic threshold for 16 consecutive weeks. Nationally, mortality attributed to P&I exceeded 10.0% for four consecutive weeks, peaking at 10.8% during the week ending January 20, 2018, (https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/flu-season-2017-2018.htm) with older Americans dying at a rate of 169 Americans a day, or seven people per hour. (https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2018/older-flu-deaths-rising.html

[AppyPappy]

You can’t eliminate dead people from the death rate.

[lepton]

The number of confirmed coronavirus case in the US is 4743 with 93 deaths. Using the same math, the mortality rate is 1.9%.

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Nope.

You don’t have the numbers available to do the same math. You have no idea how many with the flu are recovered - though if past patterns are correct, you can say that it is probably at least over 80%. Flu incidences, and eventually the coronavirus will get sampled, so that the total numbers will be reasonably extrapolated from samples to population. There is every reason to believe that, being an unreported disease, that there will be a far larger proportion unreported than the Wuhan Coronavirus will have. There is quite a bit of evidence of this last.

The closest you could get is (now) 97 deaths / (97+17 (recovered)), = 86%. That number is not going to hold up even for just the reported, among other reasons because it takes longer to recover than it takes to die. That said, it is still the number we have that is most comparable to your 10% for the flu.

Comparing the number of dead to the number of cases *during* the outbreak (especially during the early to middle of it) tells you much more about the rate of spread than it does the fatality rate.

Here is an example, with the uncertainties removed so that you can see the problem with the methodology:

If you were to replace “Coronavirus” with “Ricin”, and inject 100 people with a dose which would kill 100% in a week, then every day double the number of people you give the injection, using your method, after one week you would have a fatality/injection ratio of 0.78% (100/12,700), for a 100% fatal toxin.

Now try the same thing with an exercise in which you quadruple the number of imaginary victims every day: After 1 week, The fatality/injection rate is 100 dead divided by 546,100 = 0.018%.

See how the number went down drastically with the same actual fatality rate? Does the second example seem any better despite giving a fatality-so-far result 1/43 the size?

[lepton]

I will never know what it was, but as a 56 year old guy, I was able to get over it.

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You can be fairly sure it wasn’t the Wuhan Coronavirus, though you might be one of the perhaps few dozen that caught it from those very early US cases. Most likely you are one of the many cases of the sucky flu that went around since last October and that many on this website have had - and which while miserable was clearly not the coronavirus.

[lepton]

There is strong opposition that the numbers being used to calculate the death scare rate are way off (90% of patients have mild or no symptoms).

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The usual numbers given are 80% have no symptoms or symptoms which do not require hospitalization, with the remainder worse. 30% have “severe” respiratory symptoms, but many of these do not require hospitalization.

Therefore for each 1 case we hear about there are 90 we don’t.

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Based upon your numbers, there might be 9 you don’t, not 90 - and even that is dubious.

[lepton]

Yes, the denominator is way off for US cases...not so much for South Korean cases ...much more testing done there...use those numbers and you get 0.9%.

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At this point, the numbers for South Korea actually get you a 5.4% fatality rate, but they seem likely to go down. It is very encouraging relative to what we are seeing elsewhere, and at that point in the trajectory.

The 0.9% (really 1.0%) is a fatality/case rate, which is similar to saying that in South Korea has a recovery rate of only 17% (83% have died or not recovered). Both are wrong in the same way because they assume a final disposition which is actually unknown for the vast majority of cases.

[lepton]

Here’s the proportions based on a February CDC mortality rate by age chart. Yes, it is heavily slanted towards the elderly. Yes, there is also a redefining of “elderly” down to 50+ by those bandying about the ratios.

Ignore the actual numbers, as we don’t know how many will actually end up being infected, but look at the proportions.

If the infection totals were like this years estimate of the flu:

320,000,000
*10% infection rate
32,000,000

Age count CDC chart .. .. Dead
20s 37.3M *0.1% ... ... 3,500
30s 43.2M *0.2% ... ... 9,000
40s 42.5M *0.4% ... ..17,000
50s 31.1M *1.3% ... .. 40,000
60s 20.3M *3.6% ... .. 73,000
70s 16.3M *8.0% .. ...130,000
80+ 9.2M *14 % .. ....128,000
... ... ... ... ... .. 404,000

As you can see, the shift in fatalities towards the elderly is not as strong as is implied. And for working age folk in their 60s is about 60% in numbers from those in their 80s.

[lepton]

I was thinking yesterday NOW is the time to buy stocks if you’re into that because when the market comes back, those folks who do will make a fortune.

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It’s hard to predict exactly when, but it will be soon for the biggest jump. The current numbers will still almost undoubtedly allow for a sizable profit by the end of a year.

[lepton]

But another study also says that there were likely 6x underdiagnosis in Wuhan.

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One would have to assume that the same efforts to squash the known cases worked on the unknown cases. Not an entirely unreasonable assumption if things were as draconian as appeared.

If the disease was “in the wild” and there were many unaddressed cases, the disease would still be rampant even if they quarantined or even executed everyone reported as having the disease.

[lepton]

DeWhine and staffers said that their best guess was 100,000 unconfirmed cases in Ohio and that it was increasing at 35% per day - several days ago.

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The comments by the health official showed she had no comprehension of what “population” or “sample” meant, nor how statistical results are arrived at. Completely ludicrous statement.