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Deaths are mostly among immunocompromised, elderly or very young. Chances are you're going to be fine, if you get it, but it'll be a long and painful 2 weeks. T

Deaths are mostly among immunocompromised, elderly or very young. Chances are you're going to be fine, if you get it, but it'll be a long and painful 2 weeks. The youngest adult that died was 34. That said with a mortality rate of 2%, affecting a country like China with 1.4 billion people, even if half the people get infected, that's 14 million dead. So overall serious on a large scale.

m12k 7y ago
A relevant question is also, if most deaths really are among immunocompromised, elderly or very young, then how many of those 2% would have been killed by the flu or similar if coronavirus hadn't shown up? 14 million dead is terrible by any measure, but I'm wondering how much of a change over the norm it actually represents.
- sarabande 7y ago
  I'm not an epidemiologist. Anyway, I looked up the most recent CDC flu death estimates for 2018-2019[1]: 34157 dead from 35520883 infected, let's see how much hire a 2% corona virus mortality rate is above the normal flu mortality rate in the US: >>> .02 / (34157 / 35520883.) 20.798596480955588 About 21 times higher. [1]https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html
- koheripbal 7y ago
  It's 3-4 orders of magnitude more deadly than the normal seasonal flu. The mortality rate is similar to SARS, but with far more infections. The above comment saying that it "mostly" impacts elderly is a bit vague. The fact that within the first 100 deaths were multiple young healthy people means it is dangerous for the entire population. People in their 30s and 40s are not "old".
  - davedx 7y ago
    > It's 3-4 orders of magnitude more deadly than the normal seasonal flu Citation?
    - koheripbal 7y ago
      Influenza deaths are 2 per 100,000. source: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/flu.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/flu.htm SARS death rate is around 10% source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr...
      - cjhopman 7y ago
        You are comparing apples to oranges. Here's a better set of comparisons: Deaths per 100,000: Influenza: 2 SARS: 0.22 https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/flu.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/flu.htm, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr..., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_China % of deaths of hospitalized people: Influenza: ~10% SARS: ??? https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html % of deaths of diagnosed people (~CFR): SARS: ~10% Influenza: 0.1%-10% per strain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr..., https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3809029/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3809029/
        koheripbal 7y ago
        Your 0.22 number is nowhere in your sources, and is obviously off by several orders of magnitude based off of my original sources above.
        cjhopman 7y ago
        I think you don't understand how mortality rates are calculated. This also explains why you took two completely unrelated measure and compared them to each other in your original post. Deaths per 100,000 is based on total population. The SARS mortality rate for China in 2003 was ~0.02 (349 deaths, 1.3billion population). I was being nice to you and using just the population of southern china where the sars outbreak primarily occurred. Whether that's the most appropriate measure for this comparison isn't clear, which is why included the other measures.
  - bart_spoon 7y ago
    There was a single death of someone in their 30s out of 100+. And I don't even know if its been confirmed if they were immunocomprimised or not. Every other person to die was 47 or above, many of who had previous health issues. 1 out of 100 is is a pretty good indication that it mostly dangerous to the older population. The fact that no young children to have died yet, which also tend to be a vulnerable group for viruses like influenza and SARS is also worth noting. Also, you should be more precise in your wording. 3-4 orders of magnitude worse than the flu is absolutely not true. The mortality rate for the flu is around 14.3 per 100,000. With this as a baseline, 4 orders of magnitude is 143%, which isn't actually possible unless you are aware of people being able to die more than once. Even 3 orders of magnitude is 14.3%, which is higher than SARS. The current estimate is around 2%, which is more like 2 orders of magnitude.
    - ilkan 7y ago
      "50% of the deaths were under 47"... fixed that for you. Also implying people over 47 are elderly and not worthy caring about? Most middle managers, craftsmen, ceo's, politicians, doctors, professors, military officers would disagree.
      - bart_spoon 7y ago
        50% of deaths were under 47? Do you have a source for this? Because I can't find that anywhere, and the last time anyone reported any numbers it was literally all but 1 were 47 or older. And I'm not implying that people 47 and older arent worth caring about. But that group is always tends to have more severe health problems, which is why people should take those numbers with a grain of salt.
mytailorisrich 7y ago
> Chances are you're going to be fine, if you get it, but it'll be a long and painful 2 weeks. They've reported that strong symptoms occur in only 25% of cases, so if you get it chances are you're just experiencing having a cold (which is caused by a coronavirus).
ohitsdom 7y ago
> even if half the people get infected You say "even" as if it's a conservative estimate, but to me 50% of the country's population being infected by the same virus sounds extreme. Wouldn't this be on the extreme side?
- gdfasfklshg4 7y ago
  It seems to be as infectious as a cold. So no.
  - xdarnold 7y ago
    This is incorrect. If we assume that this virus is as infectious as the common cold, we can expect the infection rate within a household to be approximately 25% of contacts. That means that of the people you LIVE with, 25% will catch it from you. 50% infection rate in a large, distributed population like China would be very extreme.
    - ramblerman 7y ago
      Not to mention people and the government are being a lot more careful than if this was a common cold.
      - Scarblac 7y ago
        But how long can they keep that up?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - gdfasfklshg4 7y ago
      I never said 50% of the population have the same cold at once. 50% catching it over a 6 month period is very reasonable.
      - xdarnold 7y ago
coldcode 7y ago
Also a question if it will be able to mutate in a larger population, given its long incubation period without symptoms it has more opportunity. I don't know how likely this is. Another question is how long will it continue to expand in reach in China and much affect it will have on the economy.
- sanxiyn 7y ago
  Question of mutation invariably comes up. I recommend this article: http://www.virology.ws/2020/01/23/a-lesson-from-sars-cov-for-2019-ncov/ http://www.virology.ws/2020/01/23/a-lesson-from-sars-cov-for... Summary: We know of deletion event in SARS Orf8, and amino acid change in ebola glycoprotein. In both cases, it decreased viral replication or virulence.
Scarblac 7y ago
But that's deaths. Apparently a large part of surviving SARS patients still have significant health problems. And that's a coronavirus too.
- dis-sys 7y ago
  That was largely caused by high dose of hormone used during treatment. I can be wrong but hormone is no longer used that often/much in the current outbreak.
  - Scarblac 7y ago
    That is helpful to know, thanks.

m12k 7y ago

A relevant question is also, if most deaths really are among immunocompromised, elderly or very young, then how many of those 2% would have been killed by the flu or similar if coronavirus hadn't shown up? 14 million dead is terrible by any measure, but I'm wondering how much of a change over the norm it actually represents.

sarabande 7y ago
I'm not an epidemiologist. Anyway, I looked up the most recent CDC flu death estimates for 2018-2019[1]: 34157 dead from 35520883 infected, let's see how much hire a 2% corona virus mortality rate is above the normal flu mortality rate in the US: >>> .02 / (34157 / 35520883.) 20.798596480955588 About 21 times higher. [1]https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html
koheripbal 7y ago
It's 3-4 orders of magnitude more deadly than the normal seasonal flu. The mortality rate is similar to SARS, but with far more infections. The above comment saying that it "mostly" impacts elderly is a bit vague. The fact that within the first 100 deaths were multiple young healthy people means it is dangerous for the entire population. People in their 30s and 40s are not "old".
- davedx 7y ago
  > It's 3-4 orders of magnitude more deadly than the normal seasonal flu Citation?
  - koheripbal 7y ago
    Influenza deaths are 2 per 100,000. source: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/flu.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/flu.htm SARS death rate is around 10% source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr...
    - cjhopman 7y ago
      You are comparing apples to oranges. Here's a better set of comparisons: Deaths per 100,000: Influenza: 2 SARS: 0.22 https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/flu.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/flu.htm, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr..., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_China % of deaths of hospitalized people: Influenza: ~10% SARS: ??? https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html % of deaths of diagnosed people (~CFR): SARS: ~10% Influenza: 0.1%-10% per strain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr..., https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3809029/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3809029/
      - koheripbal 7y ago
        Your 0.22 number is nowhere in your sources, and is obviously off by several orders of magnitude based off of my original sources above.
        cjhopman 7y ago
        I think you don't understand how mortality rates are calculated. This also explains why you took two completely unrelated measure and compared them to each other in your original post. Deaths per 100,000 is based on total population. The SARS mortality rate for China in 2003 was ~0.02 (349 deaths, 1.3billion population). I was being nice to you and using just the population of southern china where the sars outbreak primarily occurred. Whether that's the most appropriate measure for this comparison isn't clear, which is why included the other measures.
- bart_spoon 7y ago
  There was a single death of someone in their 30s out of 100+. And I don't even know if its been confirmed if they were immunocomprimised or not. Every other person to die was 47 or above, many of who had previous health issues. 1 out of 100 is is a pretty good indication that it mostly dangerous to the older population. The fact that no young children to have died yet, which also tend to be a vulnerable group for viruses like influenza and SARS is also worth noting. Also, you should be more precise in your wording. 3-4 orders of magnitude worse than the flu is absolutely not true. The mortality rate for the flu is around 14.3 per 100,000. With this as a baseline, 4 orders of magnitude is 143%, which isn't actually possible unless you are aware of people being able to die more than once. Even 3 orders of magnitude is 14.3%, which is higher than SARS. The current estimate is around 2%, which is more like 2 orders of magnitude.
  - ilkan 7y ago
    "50% of the deaths were under 47"... fixed that for you. Also implying people over 47 are elderly and not worthy caring about? Most middle managers, craftsmen, ceo's, politicians, doctors, professors, military officers would disagree.
    - bart_spoon 7y ago
      50% of deaths were under 47? Do you have a source for this? Because I can't find that anywhere, and the last time anyone reported any numbers it was literally all but 1 were 47 or older. And I'm not implying that people 47 and older arent worth caring about. But that group is always tends to have more severe health problems, which is why people should take those numbers with a grain of salt.

mytailorisrich 7y ago

> Chances are you're going to be fine, if you get it, but it'll be a long and painful 2 weeks. They've reported that strong symptoms occur in only 25% of cases, so if you get it chances are you're just experiencing having a cold (which is caused by a coronavirus).

ohitsdom 7y ago

> even if half the people get infected You say "even" as if it's a conservative estimate, but to me 50% of the country's population being infected by the same virus sounds extreme. Wouldn't this be on the extreme side?

gdfasfklshg4 7y ago
It seems to be as infectious as a cold. So no.
- xdarnold 7y ago
  This is incorrect. If we assume that this virus is as infectious as the common cold, we can expect the infection rate within a household to be approximately 25% of contacts. That means that of the people you LIVE with, 25% will catch it from you. 50% infection rate in a large, distributed population like China would be very extreme.
  - ramblerman 7y ago
    Not to mention people and the government are being a lot more careful than if this was a common cold.
    - Scarblac 7y ago
      But how long can they keep that up?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - gdfasfklshg4 7y ago
    I never said 50% of the population have the same cold at once. 50% catching it over a 6 month period is very reasonable.
    - xdarnold 7y ago

coldcode 7y ago

Also a question if it will be able to mutate in a larger population, given its long incubation period without symptoms it has more opportunity. I don't know how likely this is. Another question is how long will it continue to expand in reach in China and much affect it will have on the economy.

sanxiyn 7y ago
Question of mutation invariably comes up. I recommend this article: http://www.virology.ws/2020/01/23/a-lesson-from-sars-cov-for-2019-ncov/ http://www.virology.ws/2020/01/23/a-lesson-from-sars-cov-for... Summary: We know of deletion event in SARS Orf8, and amino acid change in ebola glycoprotein. In both cases, it decreased viral replication or virulence.

Scarblac 7y ago

But that's deaths. Apparently a large part of surviving SARS patients still have significant health problems. And that's a coronavirus too.

dis-sys 7y ago
That was largely caused by high dose of hormone used during treatment. I can be wrong but hormone is no longer used that often/much in the current outbreak.
- Scarblac 7y ago
  That is helpful to know, thanks.