Coronavirus death rate is lower than previously reported, study says, but it's still deadlier than seasonal flu

CNN ^ | 03/30/2020 | Arman Azad

[kabar]

Stop posting your bogus stats. You aren’t including South Korea which has the single most accurate statistic because they’ve had the most widespread testing.

Most testing per capita for now. South Korea has a population of 51 million. The US is six times larger. ROK tested 400k. The US has tested 1 million. When the US reaches 2.4 million, it will equal ROK in per capita testing and then zoom past the ROK.

Some food for thought: Japan uses targeted coronavirus testing; South Korea goes big. The U.S. faces a choice.

ROK has had 3 deaths per million of population, Japan 0.4. The reported first case of the virus in the ROK was January 19. In Japan it was January 14. Why aren't more people looking at Japan? Or Hong Kong which has similar numbers to Japan?

[semantic]

3/29 Original projection (Trump basis for month long extension); April 15 peak; 150k total deaths

3/31 Updated projection (Trump basis, 2 days updated actuals); 93k total

[CodeJockey]

Seems to be a flawed comparison. If it we not for the seasonal flu vaccine how many more infections/ deaths wold there be? 10x? 100?

Assume there were no seasonal flu vaccine, now assume there is one for cv19, the opposite of the current situation.

Multiple the seasonal flu deaths by 10
Multiple the cv19 deaths by .1

You’d really need a study of both viruses in a controlled environment without any inoculations to get a true number of how they compare.

[fireman15]

We haven't received a breakdown by race or ethnicity from NYC on who has the Wuhan virus or died from it.

My best friend is a high level FEMA official in this area. They have access to this type of data, and I asked him about this. I do not think that it will be a big surprise to most here that older Asian men who are smokers are the most likely to die from it. Smoking, whether tobacco or marijuana makes everyone more vulnerable. A high percentage of the younger people who get seriously ill or die from this are smokers.

[semantic]

New York CV deaths are now over 40% of US total.

[lonestar67]

Great info.

I would add that our case rate is based on targeted testing.

In other words, our testing is not random but targeted to the very sickest people.

This means that the mortality rate for the sickest people is about 1-2%.

This means that the percentage death rate will indeed be much lower. Even without asymptomatic cases it would be much lower.

[kabar]

NY also is driving the total confirmed cases and daily new cases. From reported hospitalizations due to the CV, the US has a total of 22,490 with the NY share being 13,721. NY = Hubei province.

[SmokingJoe]

But it’s still 10 time deadlier than the seasonal flu.

Now that I have a problem with.
First of all, the seasonal flu has a cure. that has been there for decades. Coronavirus potential cures are in the trial phase. As they quickly ramp up treatments like Chloroquine, death rates will drop sharply.
Second of all, the denominator is made up of mostly those who are sick enough to go for tests/go to hospitals for treatment etc. By far most people who get infected, experience very mild symptom and recover without having any tests. If we include all those vast majority of healthy individuals who just recover without any tests, the percentage of deaths is probably far far lower.
I remember a few weeks back when the “concern trolls” were posting fatality rates of up to 10% on this site. read this:

As Eran Bendavid and Jay Bhattacharya, professors of medicine at Stanford, have written, based on their model of over 6 million cases they believe exist: “That’s a mortality rate of 0.01%, assuming a two-week lag between infection and death. This is one-tenth of the flu mortality rate of 0.1%.”

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/03/31/time_for_a_second_opinion_142817.html

[PeteB570]

A number of weeks ago before this all came up we were talking about the Spanish Flu.

An interesting theory was that it came from China. The researcher had dug through the reports on the laborers that were imported from China to help with the war effort.

Report after report covered the amount of sickness and death rates of the workers as they started in China and ended up in France.

Shortly after that the “Spanish” Flu started.

Here’s the story - from 2014.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/1/140123-spanish-flu-1918-china-origins-pandemic-science-health/

[DannyTN]

Didn’t expect to get rick rolled on a CV thread.

[proust]

Is it “fear mongering” to ask about recovered patients reduced lung capacity? But hey, at least wheezy didn’t die, bro.

[From The Deer Stand]

I’ m trying to remember.... Was there something called H1N1 a few years ago? Don’t recall hearing much about it at the time.

[3boysdad]

LOL

[gcparent]

Spanush flu killed 45k american soldiers. The 2nd wave was deadlier than the first. The first known was an Army cook in Kansas. The soldiers brought it to the US with them.

[PeteB570]

So did you read the story at the link I provided?

[SunkenCiv]

More spin from Clinton Non News.

Partisan Media Shills update.

[Morpheus2009]

I would not be surprised if HIV made someone more vulnerable to this virus.

[Paul R.]

ROK has had 3 deaths per million of population, Japan 0.4. The reported first case of the virus in the ROK was January 19. In Japan it was January 14. Why aren't more people looking at Japan? Or Hong Kong which has similar numbers to Japan?

Some people ARE looking. Multiple articles and links have been posted here. For example:

http://theconversation.com/coronavirus-south-koreas-success-in-controlling-disease-is-due-to-its-acceptance-of-surveillance-134068

There are more - please just look - I'm tired of reposting these. But I will summarize, again:

Those countries you mention have much higher levels of civilian surveillance, more extensive / widespread and intrusive (here you'd need a warrant or consent) contact tracing capability, more compliant populations when it comes to this sort of thing, more knowledgeable and practicing populations when it comes to limiting person-to-person spread (mask use, in particular), they limited "incoming" carriers early and well*, and in SK's case at least, were better prepared and ramped up to a needed level of testing for their situation(s) very quickly.

*SK had one major slip, that church group: That was contained fairly effectively, IMO, but still did and likely is doing substantial damage, even with SK's extraordinary civilian surveillance.

Most Westerners, rightly, will not accept such pervasive surveillance of the general population. Gotta find another way to skin that cat (virus), even if it costs somewhat more lives. :-(

You are usually one of our more sensible FReepers: I believe the more you look into all factors, you'll see that Dr. Fauci's stated sense of it (fatalities over infected persons), which is lower than "just the math" and places a range right around the .66% figure given in the thread article, is as good an estimate as any. He's just smart enough to give a range.

The trouble is, even a baseline 0.3 CFR (fatalities over infections) is a horrific problem if the number of active infections grows too large: Then the health care system is overwhelmed by serious and critical cases and that rockets up the CFR...

One more link. This is perhaps the best comprehensive discussion I have seen - from an eminent S. Korean Doctor. It should be required viewing for everyone. Maybe our daily thread posters would add the link to the beginning of each daily thread!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAk7aX5hksU

[WildHighlander57]

BluegrassCardinal wrote:

“The post above you did exactly that.

Some of our fearpers should be writing for evidence based, peer reviewed journals like The Lancet.

That’s how brilliant they are.

/S

[Paul R.]

In a lot of ways, yes.

NY population is a lot more ornery, though.