A man wears a facemask outside of Wall Street in New York City. CNBC.
The World Health Organization now says that the Coronavirus death rate is now 3.4%. CNBC. Initially, the WHO said that the death rate was around 2%. In comparison the seasonal flu virus typically kills much less than 1% of the people it infects. However, the mortality rate for the COVID-19 disease can vary quite a bit depending on the health care conditions of the country with rates as low as 0.7% and as high as 4%. The WHO also says that unlike influenza they aren't 100% sure how it spreads but are happy that some countries have had success in restraining the virus.
My Comment:
Not great news from the WHO but I kinda expected the death rate to be higher than the 2% that had been reported for a long time. It just seemed that in the countries outside of China that the death rate was much worse. Iran is doing very poorly in fighting the virus and is racking up deaths are a result.
However, I would caution that I don't know if these numbers are quite right. Calculating a case fatality rate is difficult under normal circumstances and these days hardly anything is normal. One of the bigger problems is that a lot of people who get the virus either display mild symptoms or none at all and never get recorded. This could artificially inflate the death rate by quite a bit and I think for sure that this is a major factor.
That being said, I don't know if I trust the numbers from some of the countries. Though China has done a lot to slow the spread of the virus and they may actually be succeeding in beating it back (new cases plateaued awhile back and now are falling) I still suspect that many of the early deaths were not officially recorded as being caused by the virus. And I, of course, don't trust any of the news out of Iran.
However, the outbreaks in Italy and South Korea are in areas with much more competent and honest governments. In Italy, as of this writing, there have been 2502 cases and 77 deaths, which is a case fatality rate of around 3%. Given that the Italian government is less likely to try and hide cases I think this number is probably close to right, with some leeway for the minor cases that don't get reported and a few deaths that get accidentally recorded as a different cause.
If these numbers are correct than what is really going to matter is how quickly and how wide this virus spreads. If a lot of people get infected than a lot of people are going to die. This isn't the flu which kills quite a few people but with a very low case fatality rate. However, we still don't know if this virus will spread as widely as the typical flu outbreak.
As I said before the Chinese seem to have slowed the virus quite a bit. Their extreme actions seem to have slowed the spread of the virus and bought a lot of time for the rest of us. Their extreme quarantine measures might not be practical in other countries but I do think it shows that the virus can be halted.
Another factor is that heat might kill the virus. Most, if not all, the countries with widespread outbreaks are in the northern hemisphere and are in winter. It doesn't seem to be spreading well at all in tropical regions or in the southern hemisphere where it is summer. That could mean that the Coronavirus only has a couple more months to spread, at least in the northern hemisphere. This idea is backed up by the SARS outbreak, which is a closely related virus. In that outbreak, cases spread quickly until around May of 2003, with only limited cases after that. If we are lucky that will be how the 2nd SARS virus will play out as well.
Of course, a lot can happen between now and summer. I still think we will see widespread cases throughout the Northern Hemisphere and limited cases everywhere else. I still think it's a very good idea for people to follow health guidelines and have a stock of food and other supplies handy. I think that the outbreak will end soon but it's going to be a tough time for everyone before that happens.
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