Posted on 03/17/2020 4:36:45 AM PDT by tatown
What if we compared the mortality rate of influenza and coronavirus using only confirmed cases (no estimates)? People seem to like to use a ~0.1% mortality rate for seasonal flu when comparing it to coronavirus. This 0.1% figures includes all of the estimated influenza cases in the US, using modeling, which dramatically lowers the mortality rate. The same modeling/estimating is never applied to coronavirus. What happens when we only use confirmed cases for each and eliminate the models and estimates for total cases?
Per the CDC the number of CONFIRMED seasonal flu cases this year in the US is 222,552 with 22,000 deaths. This calculates to a mortality rate of ~10%.
The number of confirmed coronavirus case in the US is 4743 with 93 deaths. Using the same math, the mortality rate is 1.9%.
Based on these calculations coronavirus appears no more lethal that the seasonal flu and may in fact be significantly less so. Again, this calculation is void of opinion and hysteria and simply relies on data that is known (confirmed cases and confirmed deaths). No estimates, no models, no Chinese data, Iranian data, Italian data, South Korean, etc...
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...
Here you go, Nobel Laurette, Stanford Biophysicist Professor
Interview
Corona Is Slowing Down, Humanity Will Survive, Says Biophysicist Michael Levitt
You should read this!
More .
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
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.
Perhaps but we also don’t know how many people died from Corona. It’s best to stick with what you know.
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...
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.
“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??
That you don’t want 9/11 to happen every day
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
You can’t eliminate dead people from the death rate.
The number of confirmed coronavirus case in the US is 4743 with 93 deaths. Using the same math, the mortality rate is 1.9%.
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?
I will never know what it was, but as a 56 year old guy, I was able to get over it.
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).
Therefore for each 1 case we hear about there are 90 we dont.
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%.
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.
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.
I was thinking yesterday NOW is the time to buy stocks if youre into that because when the market comes back, those folks who do will make a fortune.
But another study also says that there were likely 6x underdiagnosis in Wuhan.
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.
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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