5 ms·

They're trying to avoid a panic, so I'm just looking at the data from now on.... Numbers from https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus-case

They're trying to avoid a panic, so I'm just looking at the data from now on.... Numbers from https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus-cases/ https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus... As of March 4th. 6:22 pm eastern standard In China: Deaths: 2,981 recoveries : 49,856 Death/recovery : 5.98% Outside of China... Deaths: 272 Recoveries : 1205 Deaths/recoveries : 22.6%

perl4ever 7y ago
Recovery takes more time compared to dying. So areas where it's been present for less time are going to show a different proportion even if it's evolving the same way.
- Animats 7y ago
  Right. You can see that here: [1] The "Deaths" line and the "Recovered" line add up to maybe 60% of the "Confirmed" line. The difference is the people who are sick, but alive. [1] https://hgis.uw.edu/virus/ https://hgis.uw.edu/virus/
function_seven 7y ago
You're missing the # for "Unreported". That may be huge. For example, in China, are there another 100,000 people who contracted it, and recovered, without ever knowing they had it? You're looking at this data through the fog of war (as a sibling comment mentions).
- flukus 7y ago
  TFA addresses this: > Evidence from China is that only 1% of reported cases do not have symptoms, and most of those cases develop symptoms within 2 days. They came up with this number by testing people who didn't have symptoms but were in some contact with someone who had the virus. The big question is how much the lockdown affected this, but there doesn't appear to be large swaths of asymptomatic people.
  - function_seven 7y ago
    Thanks. I misinterpreted that to put emphasis on the "reported" part. Your explanation of how they arrived at it would definitely reduce the possible size of unsurveyed carriers. The other replies to parent do a much better job explaining how "just looking at the data" is misleading.
  - roywiggins 7y ago
    They tested everyone on the Diamond Princess and seemed to find a lot of asymptomatic cases. I don't know how to reconcile this, but there it is. The mortality rate was worse than seasonal flu but not 3%, either. https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-mortality-rate-lower-than-we-think.html https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-mortality-r...
    - microcolonel 7y ago
      What do you mean by "was"? Because as far as I'm aware, 690 of the 706 confirmed diamond princess cases have not concluded (neither dead nor recovered).
    - flukus 7y ago
      > I don't know how to reconcile this Multiple strains might explain it along with other conflicting information and differing results between countries: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/04/coronavirus-chinese-scientists-identify-two-types-covid-19.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/04/coronavirus-chinese-scientis... As you said, we're still looking at it through the fog of war.
      - roywiggins 7y ago
        Mutation would do it, so would demographic differences, level of treatment, who knows. Data out of South Korea indicate a similar CFR as the cruise ship. https://mobile.twitter.com/HelenBranswell/status/1235211584600932352 https://mobile.twitter.com/HelenBranswell/status/12352115846...
siglesias 7y ago
that's not how percentages work
knzhou 7y ago
There are a lot of things that make calculating a straightforward percentage hard: - not all cases detected - deaths are a laggy indicator - recoveries are an extremely laggy indicator - impact of demographics, healthcare quality - sizes of effects of all 4 previous things depends on the country and the time This has led to internet commentators coming up with wild numbers, ranging from 0.1% to 20%. At the risk of sounding like a spoilsport, I suggest we all defer to the expert numbers (2-3%), because the experts are perfectly aware of all 5 effects I mentioned, and more, and have already tried their best to correct for them, using better data than we have.
- droithomme 7y ago
  > defer to the expert numbers (2-3%) Latest expert estimate of global mortality rate, as published by WHO, is 3.4% as reported here: https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/WHO-global-mortality-rate-death-World-Health-Org-15104402.php https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/WHO-global-mortality-... And also as reported in OP's link. https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---3-march-2020 https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-... > "Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died."
  - ThomPete 7y ago
    Does that include those still not fully recovered?
  - learc83 7y ago
    That's just them reporting the number of deaths/confirmed cases it's not an attempt at estimating the actual mortality rate among the general population.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
CyanLite2 7y ago
All Countries except for South Korea are NOT counting the mild or asymptomatic cases. When you look at the SK numbers, 5,621 confirmed cases and 35 deaths. That puts the death rate at 0.6% (same as severe influenza season). Everybody just needs to chill.
- d1zzy 7y ago
  Even if COVID-19 fatality rate is _lower_ than the regular flu, if it infects people faster to the point where those very few severe cases cannot get the help they need because of health services being overwhelmed then it will potentially be resulting in a lot more deaths than the flu.
  - umanwizard 7y ago
    I don't understand people downplaying this by saying it's only as bad as the flu. The flu is really fucking bad! Before widespread flu vaccination, it killed 50 million people in just one outbreak (Spanish flu). That's more than have been killed by HIV/AIDS combined in history. And we have no vaccine against COVID-19. Even nowadays, it still kills tens of thousands of people every year.
    - drewcon 7y ago
      To be fair. Seasonal flu usually induces secondary sickness (bacterial pneumonia) that causes mortality in the elderly and very young population. Spanish flu wiped out the young and elderly but also the middle aged directly with things like cytokine storms. Something we are not seeing with Covid 19.
      - bcrosby95 7y ago
        Correct. Note that there were multiple waves of the Spanish Flu. First wave was fairly mild and hit the young and elderly. Second wave hit the middle aged and wiped out a chunk of the population. The third wave was slightly worse than the first but much less deadly than the second - I couldn't find much detail about it when I last tried. Several theories on why it turned out this way, none of them relevant to the current situation though.
rsynnott 7y ago
Death/recovery probably isn’t a useful stat at this point, as most sufferers haven’t had it long enough to recover, so death is the only early exit stage.
deathanatos 7y ago
At the very least, you need deaths/(deaths+recoveries) to calculate the mortality rate. That is, deaths / (total cases); as other comments note, the problem is that computing "total cases" as just deaths+recovered might not be right if one outpaces the other, and if there are a bunch of cases we don't know about because we're not testing. (E.g., are we only seeing severe cases as they send people to the hospital?)

perl4ever 7y ago

Recovery takes more time compared to dying. So areas where it's been present for less time are going to show a different proportion even if it's evolving the same way.

Animats 7y ago
Right. You can see that here: [1] The "Deaths" line and the "Recovered" line add up to maybe 60% of the "Confirmed" line. The difference is the people who are sick, but alive. [1] https://hgis.uw.edu/virus/ https://hgis.uw.edu/virus/

function_seven 7y ago

You're missing the # for "Unreported". That may be huge. For example, in China, are there another 100,000 people who contracted it, and recovered, without ever knowing they had it? You're looking at this data through the fog of war (as a sibling comment mentions).

flukus 7y ago
TFA addresses this: > Evidence from China is that only 1% of reported cases do not have symptoms, and most of those cases develop symptoms within 2 days. They came up with this number by testing people who didn't have symptoms but were in some contact with someone who had the virus. The big question is how much the lockdown affected this, but there doesn't appear to be large swaths of asymptomatic people.
- function_seven 7y ago
  Thanks. I misinterpreted that to put emphasis on the "reported" part. Your explanation of how they arrived at it would definitely reduce the possible size of unsurveyed carriers. The other replies to parent do a much better job explaining how "just looking at the data" is misleading.
- roywiggins 7y ago
  They tested everyone on the Diamond Princess and seemed to find a lot of asymptomatic cases. I don't know how to reconcile this, but there it is. The mortality rate was worse than seasonal flu but not 3%, either. https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-mortality-rate-lower-than-we-think.html https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-mortality-r...
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    What do you mean by "was"? Because as far as I'm aware, 690 of the 706 confirmed diamond princess cases have not concluded (neither dead nor recovered).
  - flukus 7y ago
    > I don't know how to reconcile this Multiple strains might explain it along with other conflicting information and differing results between countries: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/04/coronavirus-chinese-scientists-identify-two-types-covid-19.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/04/coronavirus-chinese-scientis... As you said, we're still looking at it through the fog of war.
    - roywiggins 7y ago
      Mutation would do it, so would demographic differences, level of treatment, who knows. Data out of South Korea indicate a similar CFR as the cruise ship. https://mobile.twitter.com/HelenBranswell/status/1235211584600932352 https://mobile.twitter.com/HelenBranswell/status/12352115846...

siglesias 7y ago

that's not how percentages work

knzhou 7y ago

There are a lot of things that make calculating a straightforward percentage hard: - not all cases detected - deaths are a laggy indicator - recoveries are an extremely laggy indicator - impact of demographics, healthcare quality - sizes of effects of all 4 previous things depends on the country and the time This has led to internet commentators coming up with wild numbers, ranging from 0.1% to 20%. At the risk of sounding like a spoilsport, I suggest we all defer to the expert numbers (2-3%), because the experts are perfectly aware of all 5 effects I mentioned, and more, and have already tried their best to correct for them, using better data than we have.

droithomme 7y ago
> defer to the expert numbers (2-3%) Latest expert estimate of global mortality rate, as published by WHO, is 3.4% as reported here: https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/WHO-global-mortality-rate-death-World-Health-Org-15104402.php https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/WHO-global-mortality-... And also as reported in OP's link. https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---3-march-2020 https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-... > "Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died."
- ThomPete 7y ago
  Does that include those still not fully recovered?
- learc83 7y ago
  That's just them reporting the number of deaths/confirmed cases it's not an attempt at estimating the actual mortality rate among the general population.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

CyanLite2 7y ago

All Countries except for South Korea are NOT counting the mild or asymptomatic cases. When you look at the SK numbers, 5,621 confirmed cases and 35 deaths. That puts the death rate at 0.6% (same as severe influenza season). Everybody just needs to chill.

d1zzy 7y ago
Even if COVID-19 fatality rate is _lower_ than the regular flu, if it infects people faster to the point where those very few severe cases cannot get the help they need because of health services being overwhelmed then it will potentially be resulting in a lot more deaths than the flu.
- umanwizard 7y ago
  I don't understand people downplaying this by saying it's only as bad as the flu. The flu is really fucking bad! Before widespread flu vaccination, it killed 50 million people in just one outbreak (Spanish flu). That's more than have been killed by HIV/AIDS combined in history. And we have no vaccine against COVID-19. Even nowadays, it still kills tens of thousands of people every year.
  - drewcon 7y ago
    To be fair. Seasonal flu usually induces secondary sickness (bacterial pneumonia) that causes mortality in the elderly and very young population. Spanish flu wiped out the young and elderly but also the middle aged directly with things like cytokine storms. Something we are not seeing with Covid 19.
    - bcrosby95 7y ago
      Correct. Note that there were multiple waves of the Spanish Flu. First wave was fairly mild and hit the young and elderly. Second wave hit the middle aged and wiped out a chunk of the population. The third wave was slightly worse than the first but much less deadly than the second - I couldn't find much detail about it when I last tried. Several theories on why it turned out this way, none of them relevant to the current situation though.

rsynnott 7y ago

Death/recovery probably isn’t a useful stat at this point, as most sufferers haven’t had it long enough to recover, so death is the only early exit stage.

deathanatos 7y ago

At the very least, you need deaths/(deaths+recoveries) to calculate the mortality rate. That is, deaths / (total cases); as other comments note, the problem is that computing "total cases" as just deaths+recovered might not be right if one outpaces the other, and if there are a bunch of cases we don't know about because we're not testing. (E.g., are we only seeing severe cases as they send people to the hospital?)