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For those who are referencing the flu and it's mortality rate here are estimates from the CDC for 2019 * 15,000,000 – 21,000,000 who had the flu * 8,200 – 20,

For those who are referencing the flu and it's mortality rate here are estimates from the CDC for 2019 * 15,000,000 – 21,000,000 who had the flu * 8,200 – 20,000 deaths from the flu The morality rate ranges from 0.03% to 0.09% or 3/10000 9/10000 https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-e...

hanniabu 7y ago
Any idea what the rates are for the corona virus?
- cheeseblubber 7y ago
  It seems to be too early to tell. There are most likely a lot of undocumented infected cases as well as the incubation period for the virus might be different than the flu. Which can move mortality rate both ways.
- yelnatz 7y ago
  Well 170/~7000 is ~2.4% which is about 8x deadlier.
  - Waterluvian 7y ago
    I think you're off by a few orders.
    - postalrat 7y ago
      Like one order? You might be more wrong than him.
      - Waterluvian 7y ago
        Isn't it like 0.09% of deaths vs 2% of deaths? I certainly could be misunderstanding the data!
        sudosysgen 7y ago
        0.1 vs 2 is slightly over one order of magnitude.
        Waterluvian 7y ago
        Oh my. Yes. My bad.
  - ryanwaggoner 7y ago
    It’s actually about 27x - 80x deadlier than 0.03% - 0.09%
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- twelvechairs 7y ago
  The official figures in China are 8,163 cases 171 deaths which is 2% right now, but take these with a big grain of salt. They could go up (some of those confirmed cases will be very recent and may get worse) or down (more cases might have happened but be unreported). Its really hard to tell what it will look like in a month or two.
  - nabla9 7y ago
    That 2% is only among those confirmed. When most people get sick they just stay home, then get better and never visit hospital or get into confirmed cases. Those who die usually have some other disease as well.
  - Roritharr 7y ago
    I recommend everyone to watch this on-site commentary from the chinese human rights lawyer Chen Qiushi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AI3R41dGnU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AI3R41dGnU Any numbers we've seen so far seem very tame to me, compared to the pictures out of Wuhan.
    - netsharc 7y ago
      TL;DW/DR the subtitles: he saw a lot of chaos in Wuhan's hospitals. Not enough testing kits, not enough government-requisitioned emergency taxis. Taxi drivers were already talking to each other in December saying "avoid the market". If you don't want to read subtitles for 26 minutes here's all the subtitles copy-pasted from the video: https://pastebin.com/6hJ4h4rm https://pastebin.com/6hJ4h4rm (You can hit the "..." above the red subscribe button and select "open transcript", but it shows up in a tiny window). I suppose the WHO saying they're very impressed with how China is handling the situation is because they felt the pressure to save China's face.
      - mantap 7y ago
        The way the central government is handling this is impressive, quarantining a city of that size is unprecedented and has bought the world extra time to prepare. Yes the WHO are playing politics when they focus on the good things China is doing and ignore the bad. But personally I think they are closer to the truth than those who present an entirely negative version of events. China's response has been 70% good :)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- 2019-nCoV 7y ago
  It's currently 171 deaths, 8,288 confirmed infected, which is 2% dead. However, what needs to be taken into consideration is that infected individuals don't die the day they are confirmed infected, there is a lag of several days. Assuming the average time from symptom onset and diagnosis to death is 7 days, we're looking at at 20% death rate (830 confirmed infected 1 week ago). Even a 5 day lag between symptom onset to death is a ~9% death rate (1,975 confirmed infected 5 days ago). This is exactly how the fatality rate of SARS played out.
  - jcfrei 7y ago
    I'm not an expert on viruses by any means but that seems unnecessarily pessimistic. The number of infections is likely much much higher than the confirmed cases (laboratories have only so many test kits available per day) but most people stay asymptomatic. This would reduce the actual mortality rate, not increase it.
    - btilly 7y ago
      The number of infections is likely much much higher than the confirmed cases (laboratories have only so many test kits available per day) but most people stay asymptomatic. Do you have evidence of that in this case? Viruses vary widely on how many are asymptomatic. My understanding is that having people be infectious and asymptomatic only happens with diseases that are well-adapted to their hosts. Which this one, having recently crossed a species barrier, isn't. (Its fatality rate is also high for the same reason.) However that is a general understanding and I don't have data to base it on on this case. Do you?
      - jcfrei 7y ago
        There have been quite a few cases covered in the press about patients which carried the virus but didn't show any symptoms. Most recently: https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus-outbreak/Three-Japanese-evacuees-from-Wuhan-test-positive-for-coronavirus https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus-outbreak/Three...
- mrb 7y ago
  Ignore the people telling you it's 2-3%. The case fatality ratio is between 9 and 56% according to proper epidemiological methods, such as using the formula "deaths / (deaths + recoveries)": https://mobile.twitter.com/zorinaq/status/1222427708723879936 https://mobile.twitter.com/zorinaq/status/122242770872387993... Disclosure: no I'm not an epidemiologist. But for a reference to a paper by actual epidemiologists see https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ebf2/48c9fc0a1a23d1778b94083319aa995e34f4.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ebf2/48c9fc0a1a23d1778b9408... section Simple Estimators, specifically this formula: e₂(s)=D(s)/{D(s)+R(s)} which is: deaths / (deaths + recoveries) The paper concludes: "The second simple estimate based on the ratio of deaths of those for whom the outcome is known, e₂, is reasonable at most points in the epidemic" ie. produces a good estimate of the eventual observed case fatality rate (in fact in their example it slightly underestimates the actual case fatality rate)
  - baq 7y ago
    couldn't believe these numbers, read the link. correctness is obvious in retrospect, numbers are trivial to calculate by hand by just looking at daily data. still can't believe them.
    - mrb 7y ago
      "Just looking at daily data" is your mistake. Essentially, it takes N days for the virus to kill, so deaths will lag confirmed cases by N days, and thus the calculated case fatality rate using this method is incorrect. This is why epidemiologists call it a "naïve esimator" (see section 3.1 in https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4540071/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4540071/).
  - colinmegill 7y ago
    That's you touting your own feed, and you don't appear to be an epi scientist
    - mrb 7y ago
      I'm just applying the work of epi scientists. I'd love to get feedback from one. Your comment isn't useful.
- therealmarv 7y ago
  NCOV (new corona) 2%, SARS (2012) around 10%, yearly normal flu around 0.01%-0.05% and Ebola 50-90%
  - jansan 7y ago
    During the SARS outbreak in April 2003 the reported rate was around 3.5% (58 deaths on 1622 "probable cases"). Source: https://www.who.int/csr/sars/press2003_04_01/en/ https://www.who.int/csr/sars/press2003_04_01/en/
    - zik 7y ago
      That SEARS really was the department store of illnesses.
      - dang 7y ago
        Please don't do this here. We've fixed the typo in the GP comment.
    - _-___________-_ 7y ago
      What's your point? I don't think it obviously follows that the NCOV fatality rate is under-reported just because the SARS fatality rate was.
- mrtksn 7y ago
  People mistakenly calculate %2 and %50 simultaneously because they assume that when a case is confirmed the death or cured status is also determined at that moment. In reality, though, people who are going to die don't die at the moment of infection confirmation and people who are going to live do lag in the log because it takes time to confirm if someone has recovered and virus-free. Some will suggest to simply compare the deaths to the confirmed case from a week? ago but this assumes that the patients are admitted at the same stage of their infection and all cases at the time are accounted for(deaths are probably much better tracked than the infection and the publicity has a huge impact on the reporting). It would be a guesstimate at best. I would say, let's stick to official numbers since the calculation requires each patients timeline. Surely an educated guess can be constructed by modelling the patient prognosis and virus behaviour but that also requires much more data than what the public has.
  - mrb 7y ago
    «assume that when a case is confirmed the death or cured status is also determined at that moment» This is why epidemiologists (ref: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ebf2/48c9fc0a1a23d1778b94083319aa995e34f4.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ebf2/48c9fc0a1a23d1778b9408... or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22195827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22195827 for my comment on the paper) prefer instead this formula which only counts patients for which the eventual outcome is already known: deaths / (deaths + recoveries) With this formula, there is no need to guess the "patient timeline". If you do the math right now for the largest case study known to date (published yesterday: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30211-7/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... covering 99 patients, 11 dead, 31 recovered) you get: 11 / (11 + 31) = 26% case fatality rate If you do the math on ALL data from mainland China (170 deads, 124 recovered as of 2020-01-29 http://www.nhc.gov.cn/xcs/yqtb/202001/e71bd2e7a0824ca69f87bbf1bef2a3c9.shtml http://www.nhc.gov.cn/xcs/yqtb/202001/e71bd2e7a0824ca69f87bb... or in english: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2019%E2%80%9320_Wuhan_coronavirus_outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2019%E2%80%932...), you get: 170 / (170 + 124) = 58% case fatality rate This formula gives a pretty good estimate of the eventual observed CFR according to the paper I referenced above. Of course, there are caveats, for one deaths or recoveries may not be properly tracked: there could be many patients with mild cases that are not even detected/confirmed and end up recovering on their own. PS: I am not stating the lower bound CFR is 26%! Another method I applied (described in twitter thread https://twitter.com/zorinaq/status/1222427708723879936 https://twitter.com/zorinaq/status/1222427708723879936) suggest it could be as low as 9%.
- avip 7y ago
  Short answer: seasonal flu << ncov < SARS. Long answer: wait a week or two.
  - yibg 7y ago
    Even this we don’t know yet. Could be worse than SARS, although most likely not lower than flu. Not enough data to tell yet.
- threatripper 7y ago
  We don't know. We don't know how many people are infected. We only have numbers of confirmed cases and those numbers are heavily skewed because 1) people don't know they are sick 2) stay at home or 3) are not diagnosed properly. Those diagnosed in China are probably severe cases with a multiple not being diagnosed. Also, it is unclear how good the reporting is. We don't know how many of those who are infected will die and how many will recover. We only know of deaths of confirmed patients in the hospital. Of roughly 10000 confirmed cases 200 are dead, 200 are recovered and 9600 are yet to be determined. From that you could deduce 2% or 50%, less than 2% or more than 50% or anything else. Right now we don't have good data. Also we don't know how long it takes to die or to recover and on most patients we will probably lose track. Since the infection takes about 2 weeks, we have to wait a few weeks until the smoke starts clearing.
- explore 7y ago
  Based on "all confirmed cases of 2019-nCoV in Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital from Jan 1 to Jan 20, 2020": 11% "died of multiple organ failure" and 23% are in intensive care unit https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30211-7/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
  - peteretep 7y ago
    You've quoted this deeply misleading statistic without context more than once. Please desist!
    - explore 7y ago
      This is not statistics, these are all confirmed local cases of a 20 days period. However, the future distribution may not follow this pattern.
- zhte415 7y ago
  Not being flippant, as you've had good answers already, I can tell you the rate of fear of this novel coronavirus: 100% Streets are deserted. The few that go out all wear a mask. Restaurants, museums, cafes, bars have been demanded shut across the country, ostensibly until the end of the weekend but I can see this being extended. The first working day after the Chinese New Year was supposed to be February 3rd, but the city I'm in have extended this to February 9th - offices have been told not to open. Shops are open, there is food, and new fresh vegetables, fruits, meats are being stocked.
erikbye 7y ago
Global numbers are more interesting.
mrfusion 7y ago
Are the symptoms about the same as the flu? Does having it feel like a flu?
- Medicalidiot 7y ago
  It's like a worse version of the flu. The way that you'll die from the flu is getting a secondary pneumonia infection from Staph aureus or Steptococcus pneumonia, the virus just makes you more susceptible and weaker. The major lethal consequence for this virus in the Coronavirus family is Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). A strong outcome for this is we knock you out, put a tube down your throat, and have you breath via mechanical ventilator. It's intense to say the least. Source: Medical student
  - lopmotr 7y ago
    If you have that ventilator, can you still die? How? Can the "respiratory distress" get worse without limit?
    - satanspastaroll 7y ago
      The lung's capacity to take oxygen from air decreases as the infection spreads
    - pfdietz 7y ago
      ECMO could be used in extreme cases, I imagine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extracorporeal_membrane_oxygenation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extracorporeal_membrane_oxygen...
- koheripbal 7y ago
  Basically, yes - it's an upper respiratory infection. Indistinguishable from seasonal influenza or a cold, until symptoms are severe. There may be some slight differences, but even seasonal influenza and a cold frequently present differently.
  - 7y ago
hurricanetc 7y ago
Those are US numbers only. The CDC estimates that 291,000 to 646,000 people die worldwide every year. You cannot take the US mortality rate and assume it would apply to any other country and especially not China. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p1213-flu-death-estimate.html https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p1213-flu-death-esti...
- ttul 7y ago
  Indeed. China’s medical system is primitive by comparison. They have shiny highways and trains, but hospitals are overcrowded and underfunded.
  - hatenberg 7y ago
    ...because they are not for profit so people can actually afford to get help even if they are poor
    - chaorace 7y ago
      Well, yes... but that's not really the point. There's plenty of better hospital systems, socialized or not.
    - vijaybritto 7y ago
      yes, but still they are not as developed in human indices
    - taneq 7y ago
      Large parts of the world have government-funded healthcare, including many countries where it's anything but "overcrowded and underfunded."
    - lopmotr 7y ago
      I think you're a bit off the mark. Healthcare is cheap in China, but people are even poorer. Only rich people can afford the important stuff. It's common for young people from poor families to work or forgo their education to pay their sick parent's medical costs. Usually old people just die because they can't afford medical care where in the west, they would be treated. Also doctors are poorly paid and commonly supplement their income with under the table drug sales. Oh, and most of them prescribe fake herbal medicines as if it was real and patients are fooled by it because their culture tells them it works. Imagine getting a vial of homeopathic diluted water and a sugar pill when you complain about a cough. I once knew someone who had TB and was recommended to treat it with an OTC sachet of herb from the pharmacy! It's common to find beggars outside hospitals with signs asking for money to continue their treatment. Insurance? Yes, that exists but the excess is often something like 1/3 the total cost so if you couldn't afford it yourself, you still can't afford it with insurance. That's if you have a high enough income to afford insurance in the first place.
sliken 7y ago
The scary part is that of the official 8,200 or so people that have been confirmed to have the virus there's been 171 deaths, and 143 recoveries. So more people dead than recovered, does make one wonder about the 8,200. Seems few believe the official numbers, people visit numerous hospitals without being able to seen, and even those that get seen have problems getting tested, and people who posts about the situation get the post pulled or pressured to pulled themselves. Here's an article describing the censorship (pulled posts), arrests for "rumor mongering", difficulty in getting tested, etc: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-testing-insight/confusion-and-lost-time-how-testing-woes-slowed-chinas-coronavirus-response-idUSKBN1ZQ21K https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-testing-insi... This one documents 15% of 41 people getting hospitalized dying: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30183-5/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
- bart_spoon 7y ago
  Well there is something to be said for both potential biases in those counts. First of all, those being hospitalized are obviously among the most severe cases. And presumably people with the mildest cases will potentially not even be diagnosed, so the mortality rates would be skewed higher. And secondly, that more people have died than have recovered doesn't say much other than that it takes longer to recover than to die. If you are going to die, it would appear that it would happen sooner rather than later. Whereas if you aren't going to die, you may take awhile before you've been officially cured. That isn't to say that is absolutely what is happening here. But both scenarios are fairly likely, and therefore should mediate some of the bleakness of those numbers for the time being.
  - koheripbal 7y ago
    The numbers we're getting out of China are a mess and almost entirely useless. There are reports of hospitals turning people away unless they a very sick, and also not testing every ill patient because they're overwhelmed. I've see death certificates posted online with "viral pneumonia" because they aren't able to test everyone - and certainly don't bother testing those who have already died. The errors are both ways and huge. The only thing we can conclude is that it's contagious, deadly, and more deadly than the seasonal flu.
fb1994 7y ago
The Corona Virus Solution https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpIKipSkkV8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpIKipSkkV8
kohtatsu 7y ago
It's too early for data on this coronavirus. There isn't enough organizational capacity in Wuhan to properly capture the numbers; to start with it's difficult for people to get to the hospitals because transit is shutdown, and if they get there it's often pointless because there are very few test kits and no free beds. How many have been infected is impossible to determine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AI3R41dGnU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AI3R41dGnU Edit: removed remark
snnn 7y ago
In 2018, China had 600k flu cases and 153 deaths. So the new virus has caused 10 times more deaths in this Jan. Is it serve? See: http://www.nhc.gov.cn/jkj/s3578/201904/050427ff32704a5db64f4ae1f6d57c6c.shtml http://www.nhc.gov.cn/jkj/s3578/201904/050427ff32704a5db64f4...
DoctorOetker 7y ago
I would like the WHO to be as transparent as we demand China to be (and perhaps they are): At https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/technical-guidance/early-investigations https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2... , you can see the standardized protocols for the hospitals dealing with 2019-nCov, such as the anonymizing CRF (Case Record Form): https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-ncov-crf.pdf https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-nco... Which describes both the CORE and DAILY forms for an electronic database. Some selected sentences from the pdf: === * The CRF is designed to collect data obtained through examination, interview and review of hospital notes. Data may be collected retrospectively if the patient is enrolled after the admission date. * DO NOT INPUT ANY PATIENT IDENTIFIERS: THIS INCLUDES NAMES, ADDRESSES, DATE OF BIRTH OR PLACE OF BIRTH. * Step 1: Contact EDCARN@who.int to become a contributor to the nCoV global platform. * Step 2: You will be contacted by ISARIC, platform manager, for assignment informational pack and instructions on how to use the REDCap nCoV platform. [...] * If your site would like to collect data independently, establishment of locally hosted database is possible. * Standard reports will be provided on regular basis to all contributors. Additional analysis for operational public health purposes will be determined by an independent WHO clinical advisory group. === As you can see, the only way to get this anonymized data, is to be a contributor, and to be a contributor, you'd have to be a hospital, or somehow be granted access by WHO. Remember the live outbreak map by John Hopkins? It also displays the number of people that recovered, the dates and definition of recovery duration are helpful in estimating mortality. Note that the other maps and graphs online only publish contaminations and deaths, which is not useful for calculating mortality. Why does John Hopkins deserve access, and why can I not get access, if I wish to fit a statistical model to the epidemic observations?
- Accujack 7y ago
  You can. See this page: https://www.who.int/healthinfo/statistics/en/ https://www.who.int/healthinfo/statistics/en/ Use their API or the web search, however you like. If you're going to complain about not having up to the minute data available for 2019-nCov, keep in mind that they're not getting the data submitted regularly from China, it's all in daily reports rather than from hospitals.

hanniabu 7y ago

Any idea what the rates are for the corona virus?

cheeseblubber 7y ago
It seems to be too early to tell. There are most likely a lot of undocumented infected cases as well as the incubation period for the virus might be different than the flu. Which can move mortality rate both ways.
yelnatz 7y ago
Well 170/~7000 is ~2.4% which is about 8x deadlier.
- Waterluvian 7y ago
  I think you're off by a few orders.
  - postalrat 7y ago
    Like one order? You might be more wrong than him.
    - Waterluvian 7y ago
      Isn't it like 0.09% of deaths vs 2% of deaths? I certainly could be misunderstanding the data!
      - sudosysgen 7y ago
        0.1 vs 2 is slightly over one order of magnitude.
        Waterluvian 7y ago
        Oh my. Yes. My bad.
- ryanwaggoner 7y ago
  It’s actually about 27x - 80x deadlier than 0.03% - 0.09%
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
twelvechairs 7y ago
The official figures in China are 8,163 cases 171 deaths which is 2% right now, but take these with a big grain of salt. They could go up (some of those confirmed cases will be very recent and may get worse) or down (more cases might have happened but be unreported). Its really hard to tell what it will look like in a month or two.
- nabla9 7y ago
  That 2% is only among those confirmed. When most people get sick they just stay home, then get better and never visit hospital or get into confirmed cases. Those who die usually have some other disease as well.
- Roritharr 7y ago
  I recommend everyone to watch this on-site commentary from the chinese human rights lawyer Chen Qiushi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AI3R41dGnU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AI3R41dGnU Any numbers we've seen so far seem very tame to me, compared to the pictures out of Wuhan.
  - netsharc 7y ago
    TL;DW/DR the subtitles: he saw a lot of chaos in Wuhan's hospitals. Not enough testing kits, not enough government-requisitioned emergency taxis. Taxi drivers were already talking to each other in December saying "avoid the market". If you don't want to read subtitles for 26 minutes here's all the subtitles copy-pasted from the video: https://pastebin.com/6hJ4h4rm https://pastebin.com/6hJ4h4rm (You can hit the "..." above the red subscribe button and select "open transcript", but it shows up in a tiny window). I suppose the WHO saying they're very impressed with how China is handling the situation is because they felt the pressure to save China's face.
    - mantap 7y ago
      The way the central government is handling this is impressive, quarantining a city of that size is unprecedented and has bought the world extra time to prepare. Yes the WHO are playing politics when they focus on the good things China is doing and ignore the bad. But personally I think they are closer to the truth than those who present an entirely negative version of events. China's response has been 70% good :)
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
2019-nCoV 7y ago
It's currently 171 deaths, 8,288 confirmed infected, which is 2% dead. However, what needs to be taken into consideration is that infected individuals don't die the day they are confirmed infected, there is a lag of several days. Assuming the average time from symptom onset and diagnosis to death is 7 days, we're looking at at 20% death rate (830 confirmed infected 1 week ago). Even a 5 day lag between symptom onset to death is a ~9% death rate (1,975 confirmed infected 5 days ago). This is exactly how the fatality rate of SARS played out.
- jcfrei 7y ago
  I'm not an expert on viruses by any means but that seems unnecessarily pessimistic. The number of infections is likely much much higher than the confirmed cases (laboratories have only so many test kits available per day) but most people stay asymptomatic. This would reduce the actual mortality rate, not increase it.
  - btilly 7y ago
    The number of infections is likely much much higher than the confirmed cases (laboratories have only so many test kits available per day) but most people stay asymptomatic. Do you have evidence of that in this case? Viruses vary widely on how many are asymptomatic. My understanding is that having people be infectious and asymptomatic only happens with diseases that are well-adapted to their hosts. Which this one, having recently crossed a species barrier, isn't. (Its fatality rate is also high for the same reason.) However that is a general understanding and I don't have data to base it on on this case. Do you?
    - jcfrei 7y ago
      There have been quite a few cases covered in the press about patients which carried the virus but didn't show any symptoms. Most recently: https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus-outbreak/Three-Japanese-evacuees-from-Wuhan-test-positive-for-coronavirus https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus-outbreak/Three...
mrb 7y ago
Ignore the people telling you it's 2-3%. The case fatality ratio is between 9 and 56% according to proper epidemiological methods, such as using the formula "deaths / (deaths + recoveries)": https://mobile.twitter.com/zorinaq/status/1222427708723879936 https://mobile.twitter.com/zorinaq/status/122242770872387993... Disclosure: no I'm not an epidemiologist. But for a reference to a paper by actual epidemiologists see https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ebf2/48c9fc0a1a23d1778b94083319aa995e34f4.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ebf2/48c9fc0a1a23d1778b9408... section Simple Estimators, specifically this formula: e₂(s)=D(s)/{D(s)+R(s)} which is: deaths / (deaths + recoveries) The paper concludes: "The second simple estimate based on the ratio of deaths of those for whom the outcome is known, e₂, is reasonable at most points in the epidemic" ie. produces a good estimate of the eventual observed case fatality rate (in fact in their example it slightly underestimates the actual case fatality rate)
- baq 7y ago
  couldn't believe these numbers, read the link. correctness is obvious in retrospect, numbers are trivial to calculate by hand by just looking at daily data. still can't believe them.
  - mrb 7y ago
    "Just looking at daily data" is your mistake. Essentially, it takes N days for the virus to kill, so deaths will lag confirmed cases by N days, and thus the calculated case fatality rate using this method is incorrect. This is why epidemiologists call it a "naïve esimator" (see section 3.1 in https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4540071/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4540071/).
- colinmegill 7y ago
  That's you touting your own feed, and you don't appear to be an epi scientist
  - mrb 7y ago
    I'm just applying the work of epi scientists. I'd love to get feedback from one. Your comment isn't useful.
therealmarv 7y ago
NCOV (new corona) 2%, SARS (2012) around 10%, yearly normal flu around 0.01%-0.05% and Ebola 50-90%
- jansan 7y ago
  During the SARS outbreak in April 2003 the reported rate was around 3.5% (58 deaths on 1622 "probable cases"). Source: https://www.who.int/csr/sars/press2003_04_01/en/ https://www.who.int/csr/sars/press2003_04_01/en/
  - zik 7y ago
    That SEARS really was the department store of illnesses.
    - dang 7y ago
      Please don't do this here. We've fixed the typo in the GP comment.
  - _-___________-_ 7y ago
    What's your point? I don't think it obviously follows that the NCOV fatality rate is under-reported just because the SARS fatality rate was.
mrtksn 7y ago
People mistakenly calculate %2 and %50 simultaneously because they assume that when a case is confirmed the death or cured status is also determined at that moment. In reality, though, people who are going to die don't die at the moment of infection confirmation and people who are going to live do lag in the log because it takes time to confirm if someone has recovered and virus-free. Some will suggest to simply compare the deaths to the confirmed case from a week? ago but this assumes that the patients are admitted at the same stage of their infection and all cases at the time are accounted for(deaths are probably much better tracked than the infection and the publicity has a huge impact on the reporting). It would be a guesstimate at best. I would say, let's stick to official numbers since the calculation requires each patients timeline. Surely an educated guess can be constructed by modelling the patient prognosis and virus behaviour but that also requires much more data than what the public has.
- mrb 7y ago
  «assume that when a case is confirmed the death or cured status is also determined at that moment» This is why epidemiologists (ref: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ebf2/48c9fc0a1a23d1778b94083319aa995e34f4.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ebf2/48c9fc0a1a23d1778b9408... or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22195827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22195827 for my comment on the paper) prefer instead this formula which only counts patients for which the eventual outcome is already known: deaths / (deaths + recoveries) With this formula, there is no need to guess the "patient timeline". If you do the math right now for the largest case study known to date (published yesterday: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30211-7/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... covering 99 patients, 11 dead, 31 recovered) you get: 11 / (11 + 31) = 26% case fatality rate If you do the math on ALL data from mainland China (170 deads, 124 recovered as of 2020-01-29 http://www.nhc.gov.cn/xcs/yqtb/202001/e71bd2e7a0824ca69f87bbf1bef2a3c9.shtml http://www.nhc.gov.cn/xcs/yqtb/202001/e71bd2e7a0824ca69f87bb... or in english: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2019%E2%80%9320_Wuhan_coronavirus_outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2019%E2%80%932...), you get: 170 / (170 + 124) = 58% case fatality rate This formula gives a pretty good estimate of the eventual observed CFR according to the paper I referenced above. Of course, there are caveats, for one deaths or recoveries may not be properly tracked: there could be many patients with mild cases that are not even detected/confirmed and end up recovering on their own. PS: I am not stating the lower bound CFR is 26%! Another method I applied (described in twitter thread https://twitter.com/zorinaq/status/1222427708723879936 https://twitter.com/zorinaq/status/1222427708723879936) suggest it could be as low as 9%.
avip 7y ago
Short answer: seasonal flu << ncov < SARS. Long answer: wait a week or two.
- yibg 7y ago
  Even this we don’t know yet. Could be worse than SARS, although most likely not lower than flu. Not enough data to tell yet.
threatripper 7y ago
We don't know. We don't know how many people are infected. We only have numbers of confirmed cases and those numbers are heavily skewed because 1) people don't know they are sick 2) stay at home or 3) are not diagnosed properly. Those diagnosed in China are probably severe cases with a multiple not being diagnosed. Also, it is unclear how good the reporting is. We don't know how many of those who are infected will die and how many will recover. We only know of deaths of confirmed patients in the hospital. Of roughly 10000 confirmed cases 200 are dead, 200 are recovered and 9600 are yet to be determined. From that you could deduce 2% or 50%, less than 2% or more than 50% or anything else. Right now we don't have good data. Also we don't know how long it takes to die or to recover and on most patients we will probably lose track. Since the infection takes about 2 weeks, we have to wait a few weeks until the smoke starts clearing.
explore 7y ago
Based on "all confirmed cases of 2019-nCoV in Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital from Jan 1 to Jan 20, 2020": 11% "died of multiple organ failure" and 23% are in intensive care unit https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30211-7/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
- peteretep 7y ago
  You've quoted this deeply misleading statistic without context more than once. Please desist!
  - explore 7y ago
    This is not statistics, these are all confirmed local cases of a 20 days period. However, the future distribution may not follow this pattern.
zhte415 7y ago
Not being flippant, as you've had good answers already, I can tell you the rate of fear of this novel coronavirus: 100% Streets are deserted. The few that go out all wear a mask. Restaurants, museums, cafes, bars have been demanded shut across the country, ostensibly until the end of the weekend but I can see this being extended. The first working day after the Chinese New Year was supposed to be February 3rd, but the city I'm in have extended this to February 9th - offices have been told not to open. Shops are open, there is food, and new fresh vegetables, fruits, meats are being stocked.

erikbye 7y ago

Global numbers are more interesting.

mrfusion 7y ago

Are the symptoms about the same as the flu? Does having it feel like a flu?

Medicalidiot 7y ago
It's like a worse version of the flu. The way that you'll die from the flu is getting a secondary pneumonia infection from Staph aureus or Steptococcus pneumonia, the virus just makes you more susceptible and weaker. The major lethal consequence for this virus in the Coronavirus family is Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). A strong outcome for this is we knock you out, put a tube down your throat, and have you breath via mechanical ventilator. It's intense to say the least. Source: Medical student
- lopmotr 7y ago
  If you have that ventilator, can you still die? How? Can the "respiratory distress" get worse without limit?
  - satanspastaroll 7y ago
    The lung's capacity to take oxygen from air decreases as the infection spreads
  - pfdietz 7y ago
    ECMO could be used in extreme cases, I imagine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extracorporeal_membrane_oxygenation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extracorporeal_membrane_oxygen...
koheripbal 7y ago
Basically, yes - it's an upper respiratory infection. Indistinguishable from seasonal influenza or a cold, until symptoms are severe. There may be some slight differences, but even seasonal influenza and a cold frequently present differently.
- 7y ago

hurricanetc 7y ago

Those are US numbers only. The CDC estimates that 291,000 to 646,000 people die worldwide every year. You cannot take the US mortality rate and assume it would apply to any other country and especially not China. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p1213-flu-death-estimate.html https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p1213-flu-death-esti...

ttul 7y ago
Indeed. China’s medical system is primitive by comparison. They have shiny highways and trains, but hospitals are overcrowded and underfunded.
- hatenberg 7y ago
  ...because they are not for profit so people can actually afford to get help even if they are poor
  - chaorace 7y ago
    Well, yes... but that's not really the point. There's plenty of better hospital systems, socialized or not.
  - vijaybritto 7y ago
    yes, but still they are not as developed in human indices
  - taneq 7y ago
    Large parts of the world have government-funded healthcare, including many countries where it's anything but "overcrowded and underfunded."
  - lopmotr 7y ago
    I think you're a bit off the mark. Healthcare is cheap in China, but people are even poorer. Only rich people can afford the important stuff. It's common for young people from poor families to work or forgo their education to pay their sick parent's medical costs. Usually old people just die because they can't afford medical care where in the west, they would be treated. Also doctors are poorly paid and commonly supplement their income with under the table drug sales. Oh, and most of them prescribe fake herbal medicines as if it was real and patients are fooled by it because their culture tells them it works. Imagine getting a vial of homeopathic diluted water and a sugar pill when you complain about a cough. I once knew someone who had TB and was recommended to treat it with an OTC sachet of herb from the pharmacy! It's common to find beggars outside hospitals with signs asking for money to continue their treatment. Insurance? Yes, that exists but the excess is often something like 1/3 the total cost so if you couldn't afford it yourself, you still can't afford it with insurance. That's if you have a high enough income to afford insurance in the first place.

sliken 7y ago

The scary part is that of the official 8,200 or so people that have been confirmed to have the virus there's been 171 deaths, and 143 recoveries. So more people dead than recovered, does make one wonder about the 8,200. Seems few believe the official numbers, people visit numerous hospitals without being able to seen, and even those that get seen have problems getting tested, and people who posts about the situation get the post pulled or pressured to pulled themselves. Here's an article describing the censorship (pulled posts), arrests for "rumor mongering", difficulty in getting tested, etc: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-testing-insight/confusion-and-lost-time-how-testing-woes-slowed-chinas-coronavirus-response-idUSKBN1ZQ21K https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-testing-insi... This one documents 15% of 41 people getting hospitalized dying: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30183-5/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

bart_spoon 7y ago
Well there is something to be said for both potential biases in those counts. First of all, those being hospitalized are obviously among the most severe cases. And presumably people with the mildest cases will potentially not even be diagnosed, so the mortality rates would be skewed higher. And secondly, that more people have died than have recovered doesn't say much other than that it takes longer to recover than to die. If you are going to die, it would appear that it would happen sooner rather than later. Whereas if you aren't going to die, you may take awhile before you've been officially cured. That isn't to say that is absolutely what is happening here. But both scenarios are fairly likely, and therefore should mediate some of the bleakness of those numbers for the time being.
- koheripbal 7y ago
  The numbers we're getting out of China are a mess and almost entirely useless. There are reports of hospitals turning people away unless they a very sick, and also not testing every ill patient because they're overwhelmed. I've see death certificates posted online with "viral pneumonia" because they aren't able to test everyone - and certainly don't bother testing those who have already died. The errors are both ways and huge. The only thing we can conclude is that it's contagious, deadly, and more deadly than the seasonal flu.

fb1994 7y ago

The Corona Virus Solution https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpIKipSkkV8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpIKipSkkV8

kohtatsu 7y ago

It's too early for data on this coronavirus. There isn't enough organizational capacity in Wuhan to properly capture the numbers; to start with it's difficult for people to get to the hospitals because transit is shutdown, and if they get there it's often pointless because there are very few test kits and no free beds. How many have been infected is impossible to determine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AI3R41dGnU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AI3R41dGnU Edit: removed remark

snnn 7y ago

In 2018, China had 600k flu cases and 153 deaths. So the new virus has caused 10 times more deaths in this Jan. Is it serve? See: http://www.nhc.gov.cn/jkj/s3578/201904/050427ff32704a5db64f4ae1f6d57c6c.shtml http://www.nhc.gov.cn/jkj/s3578/201904/050427ff32704a5db64f4...

DoctorOetker 7y ago

I would like the WHO to be as transparent as we demand China to be (and perhaps they are): At https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/technical-guidance/early-investigations https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2... , you can see the standardized protocols for the hospitals dealing with 2019-nCov, such as the anonymizing CRF (Case Record Form): https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-ncov-crf.pdf https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-nco... Which describes both the CORE and DAILY forms for an electronic database. Some selected sentences from the pdf: === * The CRF is designed to collect data obtained through examination, interview and review of hospital notes. Data may be collected retrospectively if the patient is enrolled after the admission date. * DO NOT INPUT ANY PATIENT IDENTIFIERS: THIS INCLUDES NAMES, ADDRESSES, DATE OF BIRTH OR PLACE OF BIRTH. * Step 1: Contact EDCARN@who.int to become a contributor to the nCoV global platform. * Step 2: You will be contacted by ISARIC, platform manager, for assignment informational pack and instructions on how to use the REDCap nCoV platform. [...] * If your site would like to collect data independently, establishment of locally hosted database is possible. * Standard reports will be provided on regular basis to all contributors. Additional analysis for operational public health purposes will be determined by an independent WHO clinical advisory group. === As you can see, the only way to get this anonymized data, is to be a contributor, and to be a contributor, you'd have to be a hospital, or somehow be granted access by WHO. Remember the live outbreak map by John Hopkins? It also displays the number of people that recovered, the dates and definition of recovery duration are helpful in estimating mortality. Note that the other maps and graphs online only publish contaminations and deaths, which is not useful for calculating mortality. Why does John Hopkins deserve access, and why can I not get access, if I wish to fit a statistical model to the epidemic observations?

Accujack 7y ago
You can. See this page: https://www.who.int/healthinfo/statistics/en/ https://www.who.int/healthinfo/statistics/en/ Use their API or the web search, however you like. If you're going to complain about not having up to the minute data available for 2019-nCov, keep in mind that they're not getting the data submitted regularly from China, it's all in daily reports rather than from hospitals.