7 ms·

Mortality rate is much, much lower than 3% if you exclude the elderly and the critically ill. Based on the Chinese CCDC's report released last week, covering 72

by dpiers 7y ago

Mortality rate is much, much lower than 3% if you exclude the elderly and the critically ill. Based on the Chinese CCDC's report released last week, covering 72,314 confirmed infections, mortality rate for a young healthy person is an order of magnitude lower. 80+ years old: 14.8% 70-79 years old: 8.0% 60-69 years old: 3.6% 50-59 years old: 1.3% 40-49 years old: 0.4% 30-39 years old: 0.2% 20-29 years old: 0.2% 10-19 years old: 0.2% 0-9 years old: no fatalities I think most people are blowing it out of proportion. It's just a bad flu, and it seems to be responding well to remdesivir treatments in early trials. I also think that, with the news we're getting now about asymptomatic/minor cases, it's highly likely the real number of infections is much larger, which would mean the CFR numbers are way too high.

bitxbit 7y ago
You’re citing numbers from the Chinese govt. You can’t be serious.
nostrebored 7y ago
Another bad flu is a terrifying prospect. If this coronavirus becomes cyclical like the flu, it will be a gigantic driver of global mortality.
allovernow 7y ago
These numbers are bullshit and I'm tired of having to repeat this everywhere. The Chinese government is lying about infections and there are legal and infrastructural issues which prevent the vast majority of cases from being diagnosed and reported, even if there wasn't an ongoing official attempt at minimization. The virus has a ≈15% critical illness rate[1]. There are less than 100k ICU beds in the entire United States. They will very quickly be overwhelmed, exactly as they are in China, SK, Iran, Italy...the list is getting too long to keep up with. At that point the mortality rate approaches 15%. This is not the god damn flu and people who dismiss it as such are being hugely irresponsible. 1. I believe this article is referencing the published paper in Lancet that I was referring to https://coercioncode.com/2020/01/27/breaking-news-coronavirus-15-fatality-rate-83-infection-rate/ https://coercioncode.com/2020/01/27/breaking-news-coronaviru... Also bear in mind that the study is out of China, so it is most likely extremely conservative because the government has been publicly cracking down on anyone "spreading rumors" about the virus. The peoples' collective, deliberate obviousness at this point is unbelievable. Edit: wait a minute, I don't think I've even seen the paper I linked yet. This one reports 32% ICU admission rate and 15% death with lasting damage in recovered patients. Some 2 dozen Chinese authors to boot. Get your fucking heads out of the sand! https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30183-5/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
- jsight 7y ago
  > The virus has a ≈15% critical illness rate[1]. This is completely implausible.
  - empath75 7y ago
    Why do you say that? That’s what all the reporting says. That’s why the health care systems were overwhelmed.
    - jennyyang 7y ago
      Not at all. The number of serious/critical outside of China are about 3% and mostly elderly people.
    - jsight 7y ago
      We are seeing a lot of cases that are only being discovered after the patient has had symptoms for some period of time. It seems like a number of these cases have been mild enough that a lot of people would not have even sought care. The idea that 1/6 cases are "critical" just doesn't align with this reality.
      - tristanj 7y ago
        A 15% critical rate is very plausible. A widely shared report [1] on Chinese media described how an entire family died to virus. A man, his sister, mother, and father all died to the coronavirus. His wife is in serious condition. Using the reported death rates posted above, the odds of this happening are 1.3% * 1.3% * 8% * 8% = 1/924556. That's nearly 1 in a million. I concede that the medical system in Wuhan was overwhelmed, and these 5 patients did not have access to medical care. [1] https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-02-17/four-deaths-in-one-family-show-danger-of-wuhans-home-quarantine-policy-101516690.html https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-02-17/four-deaths-in-one-f...
        username90 7y ago
        No it is not, Diamond Princess is the only controlled environment we have and it didn't have even close to 15% critical rate.
HarryHirsch 7y ago
remdesivir treatments The synthesis route from Wikipedia does not look encouraging. Eight steps, some conducted at low temperature - good luck with scale-up! Production scale at dry ice temperature requires a dedicated facility, your garden-variety contract shop doesn't have the equipment.
erentz 7y ago
I think your post is intended to be reassuring to the presumable majority younger demographic on HN. But it strikes me as very insensitive. Ignoring the validity of the source of those numbers, even if they hold up. We all know people over 40. We all know people with existing illness that put them in higher risk brackets. And we all know people in other regions of the world with poorer healthcare systems where the fatality rate may go up. The parent’s fatality rate was broadly correct. You can’t just select out a big portion of the population to give a better survival rate. Then compare your hacked fatality rate to the unhacked seasonal flu rate. “Just a bad flu” that is up to 20x worse than the regular flu is a big big deal. The near wartime like response in China is not “just a bad flu.” This is affecting a lot of people in very serious and real world ways.
- jsight 7y ago
  To me, his last paragraph was the most important part. We've seen that the case rate increases dramatically as more tests are administered. This is implying a very strong selection bias in the past testing towards the most severe cases. The mortality rates are certainly much lower than these estimates.
  - Rury 7y ago
    >We've seen that the case rate increases dramatically as more tests are administered Is that really true though? The UK has administered some of the most tests at over 7,119 but only 13 confirmed cases. US has done a measly 445 tests, yet 60 cases? Might be things are just starting to ramp up, and yet we're behind on testing...
    - belltaco 7y ago
      >US has done a measly 445 tests, yet 60 cases? I think the US tests were much more targeted to those most likely to have contracted it. Like US citizens returning from Wuhan/Hubei.
      - Rury 7y ago
platz 7y ago
29 to 40 year old Chinese doctors have already died. If it was really only 0.2/0.4% for them, those events would have been extremely unlikely. Also, in Iran it is concerning how much higher the CFR is there; which are leading some to think the virus may be exhibiting different behavior there. and yes, the severe/critical case rate is somewhere around 14%-18%, which means you need hospitalization. if you don't trust the chinese data, the data in south korea and italy is very trustworthy, and looks just as bad on those too.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- leereeves 7y ago
  Do you mean the Chinese doctors who were in prison for revealing the coronavirus to the public? I imagine their health was terrible just from a few weeks living in a Chinese prison.
flukus 7y ago
Are those numbers supposed to be comforting? > 80+ years old: 14.8%, 70-79 years old: 8.0% That makes it extremely likely that at least one friend or family member while die of this. > 30-39 years old: 0.2% To put things in perspective (https://www.statista.com/statistics/241572/death-rate-by-age-and-sex-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/241572/death-rate-by-age...), that doubles this risk of death this year for that age bracket. > 10-19 years old: 0.2% That roughly quadruples the rate of death for that bracket. And besides that, it's not the mortality that's the biggest worry but the amount that need critical care (10-20%). In a large outbreak there will simply be more critical cases than there are ventilators to put them on. Edit - Does anyone know what sort of triage China put in place? Ie, when they don't have enough capacity are they favoring treating young people and giving up on the 80+?
jhayward 7y ago
Why would you exclude people over 50, transplant patients, people with lung ailments or cardiovascular disease, people being treated for auto-immune disease, etc? This reaction that it's OK as long as it doesn't kill young healthy people is sociopathic. By the way, your "blown out of proportion" comment means you are fine, just fine, with an expected death toll of 4 million Americans, if it were to go epidemic and infect 40% of the US.
smogcutter 7y ago
> Mortality rate is much, much lower than 3% if you exclude the elderly and the critically ill Yeah, fuck them, right?
- refurb 7y ago
  Do you get as upset when those same figures are given for the flu?
  - danso 7y ago
    What same figures? The CDC says the high end of flu deaths is 40,000 [0]. You think that number compares with a 3 percent mortality rate for the 70 million Americans who are 60+ years old? [0] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-e...
  - flukus 7y ago
    I do when people downplay the flu and say it's just a bad cold.
danso 7y ago
Nearly a quarter of the United States population is 60 and older. https://censusreporter.org/profiles/01000US-united-states/ https://censusreporter.org/profiles/01000US-united-states/
ttflee 7y ago
The most significant experience is that efforts should be made before medical services were overwhelmed by flood of patients. Mortality would be higher if patients were not properly looked after.
empath75 7y ago
Flu is also heavily dependent on age — The mortality rate for seasonal flu for 18-49 year olds is .02% — so by your own numbers, this is 10 times worse.
hanniabu 7y ago
Can you explain those percentages? Why do they add up to ~30% and not 100%?
- gowld 7y ago
  Death rate by age bucket
gremlinsinc 7y ago
Say this holds out, but say it's fast evolving. A woman in Japan for instance recovered from the virus 2 weeks ago, and is in the hospital w/ it for the 2nd time. If you don't die the first time, what's to say you don't get this 3-4 times in the next year and the 4th time gets you?
mbo 7y ago
> 80+ years old: 14.8% Great. My grandparents have a more than insignificant chance of dying if they (probably) catch it. This really assuages my fears. > Mortality rate is much, much lower than 3% if you exclude the elderly and the critically ill. Why would we do this?
tebuevd 7y ago
Not trying to be mean, but stopped reading after "based on the Chinese CCDC's report".

by dpiers 7y ago

bitxbit 7y ago

You’re citing numbers from the Chinese govt. You can’t be serious.

nostrebored 7y ago

Another bad flu is a terrifying prospect. If this coronavirus becomes cyclical like the flu, it will be a gigantic driver of global mortality.

allovernow 7y ago

These numbers are bullshit and I'm tired of having to repeat this everywhere. The Chinese government is lying about infections and there are legal and infrastructural issues which prevent the vast majority of cases from being diagnosed and reported, even if there wasn't an ongoing official attempt at minimization. The virus has a ≈15% critical illness rate[1]. There are less than 100k ICU beds in the entire United States. They will very quickly be overwhelmed, exactly as they are in China, SK, Iran, Italy...the list is getting too long to keep up with. At that point the mortality rate approaches 15%. This is not the god damn flu and people who dismiss it as such are being hugely irresponsible. 1. I believe this article is referencing the published paper in Lancet that I was referring to https://coercioncode.com/2020/01/27/breaking-news-coronavirus-15-fatality-rate-83-infection-rate/ https://coercioncode.com/2020/01/27/breaking-news-coronaviru... Also bear in mind that the study is out of China, so it is most likely extremely conservative because the government has been publicly cracking down on anyone "spreading rumors" about the virus. The peoples' collective, deliberate obviousness at this point is unbelievable. Edit: wait a minute, I don't think I've even seen the paper I linked yet. This one reports 32% ICU admission rate and 15% death with lasting damage in recovered patients. Some 2 dozen Chinese authors to boot. Get your fucking heads out of the sand! https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30183-5/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

jsight 7y ago
> The virus has a ≈15% critical illness rate[1]. This is completely implausible.
- empath75 7y ago
  Why do you say that? That’s what all the reporting says. That’s why the health care systems were overwhelmed.
  - jennyyang 7y ago
    Not at all. The number of serious/critical outside of China are about 3% and mostly elderly people.
  - jsight 7y ago
    We are seeing a lot of cases that are only being discovered after the patient has had symptoms for some period of time. It seems like a number of these cases have been mild enough that a lot of people would not have even sought care. The idea that 1/6 cases are "critical" just doesn't align with this reality.
    - tristanj 7y ago
      A 15% critical rate is very plausible. A widely shared report [1] on Chinese media described how an entire family died to virus. A man, his sister, mother, and father all died to the coronavirus. His wife is in serious condition. Using the reported death rates posted above, the odds of this happening are 1.3% * 1.3% * 8% * 8% = 1/924556. That's nearly 1 in a million. I concede that the medical system in Wuhan was overwhelmed, and these 5 patients did not have access to medical care. [1] https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-02-17/four-deaths-in-one-family-show-danger-of-wuhans-home-quarantine-policy-101516690.html https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-02-17/four-deaths-in-one-f...
      - username90 7y ago
        No it is not, Diamond Princess is the only controlled environment we have and it didn't have even close to 15% critical rate.

HarryHirsch 7y ago

remdesivir treatments The synthesis route from Wikipedia does not look encouraging. Eight steps, some conducted at low temperature - good luck with scale-up! Production scale at dry ice temperature requires a dedicated facility, your garden-variety contract shop doesn't have the equipment.

erentz 7y ago

I think your post is intended to be reassuring to the presumable majority younger demographic on HN. But it strikes me as very insensitive. Ignoring the validity of the source of those numbers, even if they hold up. We all know people over 40. We all know people with existing illness that put them in higher risk brackets. And we all know people in other regions of the world with poorer healthcare systems where the fatality rate may go up. The parent’s fatality rate was broadly correct. You can’t just select out a big portion of the population to give a better survival rate. Then compare your hacked fatality rate to the unhacked seasonal flu rate. “Just a bad flu” that is up to 20x worse than the regular flu is a big big deal. The near wartime like response in China is not “just a bad flu.” This is affecting a lot of people in very serious and real world ways.

jsight 7y ago
To me, his last paragraph was the most important part. We've seen that the case rate increases dramatically as more tests are administered. This is implying a very strong selection bias in the past testing towards the most severe cases. The mortality rates are certainly much lower than these estimates.
- Rury 7y ago
  >We've seen that the case rate increases dramatically as more tests are administered Is that really true though? The UK has administered some of the most tests at over 7,119 but only 13 confirmed cases. US has done a measly 445 tests, yet 60 cases? Might be things are just starting to ramp up, and yet we're behind on testing...
  - belltaco 7y ago
    >US has done a measly 445 tests, yet 60 cases? I think the US tests were much more targeted to those most likely to have contracted it. Like US citizens returning from Wuhan/Hubei.
    - Rury 7y ago

platz 7y ago

29 to 40 year old Chinese doctors have already died. If it was really only 0.2/0.4% for them, those events would have been extremely unlikely. Also, in Iran it is concerning how much higher the CFR is there; which are leading some to think the virus may be exhibiting different behavior there. and yes, the severe/critical case rate is somewhere around 14%-18%, which means you need hospitalization. if you don't trust the chinese data, the data in south korea and italy is very trustworthy, and looks just as bad on those too.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
leereeves 7y ago
Do you mean the Chinese doctors who were in prison for revealing the coronavirus to the public? I imagine their health was terrible just from a few weeks living in a Chinese prison.

flukus 7y ago

Are those numbers supposed to be comforting? > 80+ years old: 14.8%, 70-79 years old: 8.0% That makes it extremely likely that at least one friend or family member while die of this. > 30-39 years old: 0.2% To put things in perspective (https://www.statista.com/statistics/241572/death-rate-by-age-and-sex-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/241572/death-rate-by-age...), that doubles this risk of death this year for that age bracket. > 10-19 years old: 0.2% That roughly quadruples the rate of death for that bracket. And besides that, it's not the mortality that's the biggest worry but the amount that need critical care (10-20%). In a large outbreak there will simply be more critical cases than there are ventilators to put them on. Edit - Does anyone know what sort of triage China put in place? Ie, when they don't have enough capacity are they favoring treating young people and giving up on the 80+?

jhayward 7y ago

Why would you exclude people over 50, transplant patients, people with lung ailments or cardiovascular disease, people being treated for auto-immune disease, etc? This reaction that it's OK as long as it doesn't kill young healthy people is sociopathic. By the way, your "blown out of proportion" comment means you are fine, just fine, with an expected death toll of 4 million Americans, if it were to go epidemic and infect 40% of the US.

smogcutter 7y ago

> Mortality rate is much, much lower than 3% if you exclude the elderly and the critically ill Yeah, fuck them, right?

refurb 7y ago
Do you get as upset when those same figures are given for the flu?
- danso 7y ago
  What same figures? The CDC says the high end of flu deaths is 40,000 [0]. You think that number compares with a 3 percent mortality rate for the 70 million Americans who are 60+ years old? [0] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-e...
- flukus 7y ago
  I do when people downplay the flu and say it's just a bad cold.

danso 7y ago

Nearly a quarter of the United States population is 60 and older. https://censusreporter.org/profiles/01000US-united-states/ https://censusreporter.org/profiles/01000US-united-states/

ttflee 7y ago

The most significant experience is that efforts should be made before medical services were overwhelmed by flood of patients. Mortality would be higher if patients were not properly looked after.

empath75 7y ago

Flu is also heavily dependent on age — The mortality rate for seasonal flu for 18-49 year olds is .02% — so by your own numbers, this is 10 times worse.

hanniabu 7y ago

Can you explain those percentages? Why do they add up to ~30% and not 100%?

gowld 7y ago
Death rate by age bucket

gremlinsinc 7y ago

Say this holds out, but say it's fast evolving. A woman in Japan for instance recovered from the virus 2 weeks ago, and is in the hospital w/ it for the 2nd time. If you don't die the first time, what's to say you don't get this 3-4 times in the next year and the 4th time gets you?

mbo 7y ago

> 80+ years old: 14.8% Great. My grandparents have a more than insignificant chance of dying if they (probably) catch it. This really assuages my fears. > Mortality rate is much, much lower than 3% if you exclude the elderly and the critically ill. Why would we do this?

tebuevd 7y ago

Not trying to be mean, but stopped reading after "based on the Chinese CCDC's report".