Coronavirus
I thought I’d share some thoughts about the coronavirus threat that is occupying the news now. I’m not convinced we’ll get accurate information as some deny there is a threat while others may tend to...
Forum Discussion
dturm wrote:Crowe wrote:
Please keep in mind the infection/mortality rates for the "regular" flu are much higher than COVID-19, at least at this point in time: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm
Actually we don't know that. We need more information. Considering real numbers, it's true that COVID-19 has killed fewer than seasonal flu.
Since we're early in this disease outbreak we don't have accurate numbers of those infected with COVID-19 especially in the US since we have tested so few people.
Mortality rates are usually expressed as a percentage, the number of people who die divided by the number that get infected.
The evidence at this point is that the coronavirus is more deadly (higher mortality rate) than seasonal flu.
Highlights from this JAMA report of over 70,000 Chinese coronavirus cases:
- In China, Coronavirus spread from a single city to the entire country in 30 days.
- 80% of the cases were mild
- 14% of the cases were severe
- 5% of the cases were critical (about 50% of these patients died)
- While the overall fatality rate was 2.3%, this rate increased with age:
- 8% fatality rate for patients aged 70 - 79
- 14.8% fatality rate for patients aged 80 and greater
- 8% fatality rate for patients aged 70 - 79
As has been mentioned the seasonal flu death rate is 0.1%. However, the 1918 flu pandemic was at 2%.
