Free Republic

Patients hospitalized with COVID-19 were more likely to die than those hospitalized with influenza during the fall and winter of 2023-2024, according to an analysis of Veterans Affairs data. Among over 11,000 patients hospitalized for either illness during this past fall and winter, 5.7% of patients with COVID-19 died within 30 days of admission versus 4.24% of patients with influenza, reported Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, of the VA St. Louis Health Care System, and colleagues. email article A photo of a nurse in full protective gear at the bedside of an intubated COVID patient in the ICU. Patients hospitalized with COVID-19...

SARS much more deadly than first estimated 13:43 25 April 03 NewScientist.com news service Analysis of the latest statistics on the global SARS epidemic reveals that at least 10 per cent of people who contract the new virus will die of the disease. The low death rates of about four per cent cited until now by the World Health Organization and others are the result of a statistical difficulty, well known to epidemiologists, that hampers the early analysis of new disease outbreaks. This difficulty is the reason for the apparent rise in death rate - not a change in the...

Disease may change to an even deadlier formSars resembles the fatal flu virus of 1918 By Charles Arthur, Science Editor 06 April 2003 Reinhard Kurth, the head of the German government's Robert Koch Institute, was not exactly encouraging on Friday night. A vaccine for Sars could be developed, he said – but it would take three to five years. Experts worldwide are still struggling to identify precisely what is causing the illness, and how it is transmitted. Some can already see light at the end of the tunnel. "To me, the epidemic is almost certainly over," said Osman David Mansoor,...