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To be clear, the article says "Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died." The issue is with reporting (the denominator). The bar for "reporting
by kfarr 7y ago
To be clear, the article says "Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died." The issue is with reporting (the denominator). The bar for "reporting" COVID-19 positive is very high relative to the flu, especially as some countries (ahem USA) don't / didn't even permit testing of all symptomatic patients.
So yes maybe it is orders of magnitude more deadly than the flu but it doesn't seem clear at all that we have sufficient information to say that it is 3.4%
- makomk 7y agoNot just the US. Crucially, Wuhan and I think also the rest of Hubei pretty much only tested patients who showed lung abnormalities on CT scans, so only the more severe cases were diagnosed. The WHO knows this. In fact, they've been appearing in the pages of the New York Times and anywhere else that'll have them and gushing about how great this Chinese testing methodology is and how everyone should copy it.
- fspeech 7y agoThey test much more widely but only those with pneumonia are counted as confirmed. But this is a viral pneumonia. So the undercounting is not that much.