5 ms·
Analyzing the news: coronavirus is the death rate 2% or more?
Lets test the facts presented in the market watch article, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/cdc-there-are-now-53-covid-19-cases-in-us-as-more-diamond-princess-passengers-test-positive-2020-02-24
Sources:
Population 79,000; market watch article above
2%: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/25/what-is-coronavirus-symptoms-wuhan-covid-19 and http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/02/study-72000-covid-19-patients-finds-23-death-rate
I want to understand if the numbers being reported from various sources are correct or not.
Fact coronavirus kills 2% of the world population
Question is it actually 2% or are they under reporting the cases reported?
Cases reported at least 79,000 world wide
Estimated death toll percentage: 2%
Reported deaths: 2622 people
Test A
x is the population of people who are infected
2622 is the reported number of deaths
0.02 is 2% is the reported percentage of infected that die from the virus
x0.02 = 2622
(x0.02/0.02) = 2622/0.02
x = 2622/0.02
x = 131,100
Conclusion: Either it's not 2% or the population is misreported; if it's 2% then the population is 131,000 not 79,000 reported by the news.
Thus given the population differences, we can calculate how much lower the 79,000 is then the un reported number;
60.2%. 79000/131100 = 60.2%
Test B:
Now lets figure out with the 79000 population what the correct death rate is:
x is the percentage of deaths we're looking for.
79,000 is the reported population from the article
2622 is the reported number of deaths
79000 * x = 2622
(79000 * x)/7900 = 2622/79000
x = 2622/79000
x = 0.033
Conclusion: Thus given 79,000 we can reasonably estimate that the media is lying to us (or using bad math) and the death toll percentage is 3.3% of the infected cases.
Conclusion of both numbers:
1. Either 3.3% is the true percentage of people who will die from the virus
2. Or the population of infect is much larger then what is being reported
- snow_mac 7y agoDoes anyone have any feedback?
- jyu 7y agoYou're treating the population as a homogenous mass, indistinguishable from each other. That assumption is not correct. Look at age, existing health conditions, smoking, drinking cohorts and you'll see that certain groups have much higher death rates. Also consider that some infected people do not show any symptoms. The diagnostic kits are limited and take time to process. When a cluster of people get symptoms, they overwhelm health services. All of these issues and others combined can cause chaos in an undefined way. The most harmful effect is loss in faith in society and the economy as we collectively regress to a scarcity mindset.
- superflit 7y agoIt is very worse to asians. 4x times more deadly
- firatcan 7y agoGenetics are influential on this kind of cases. I am not an expert on this but it seems like the problem is how fast it spreads not the dead rates?
- jack3456 7y agoToo much news is learned from neighboring countries that they need a lot of mobile cremator cars. If they can know the SO2 produced by a day's combustion or the local Chinese should visually know that it will be more than expected. fiy: https://nypost.com/2020/02/08/chinas-culture-of-lies-has-helped-spread-the-coronavirus/ https://nypost.com/2020/02/08/chinas-culture-of-lies-has-hel...
- matt_s 7y agoLast week I did some napkin math on numbers published and came out with a 2.5% death rate. I assume gathering statistics globally can be difficult since each jurisdiction may count/report numbers differently and have different detection methods. Watching the (US) news this morning, they reminded that elderly and people with heart disease, diabetes, poor lung function, etc. are a lot more susceptible. I think I heard the normal flu death rate is still higher, would be interesting to see actual numbers on that although I'm not concerned enough to research.