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I have a similar question. What percent of 70+ year olds that enter a hospital for cold/flu symptoms end up dying? Without knowing that as baseline, it is hard

I have a similar question. What percent of 70+ year olds that enter a hospital for cold/flu symptoms end up dying? Without knowing that as baseline, it is hard to meaningfully evaluate the covid19 death rate, especially considering that only the seriously ill are tested (and they don't report the death rate of those who test negative).

bob33212 7y ago
Around .5%
- dr_dshiv 7y ago
  Thanks but no thanks for an uncited number. In this study, about 9% of non-elective geriatric patients admitted to a hospital die. https://academic.oup.com/ageing/article/34/5/467/40349 https://academic.oup.com/ageing/article/34/5/467/40349 In this study, it was closer to 15%. http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1807-59322009000700002&script=sci_arttext http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1807-59322009000700002&... Now, if they only covid19 test people sick enough to be hospitalized, and if most of the deaths are over 70, shouldn't there be a comparison in the death rates to those patients testing negative?
  - bob33212 7y ago
    Not all patients who enter a hospital are admitted for 3+ days.
    - Dylan16807 7y ago
      Okay, so that means we need to ask what percent of flu patients admitted to a hospital are out in less than 3 days. Probably not most of them?
zaroth 7y ago
I can tell you that of 200,000 hospital admissions for the flu each year in the US, approximately 20,000 will die, i.e. 10%. To put it another way, if we didn’t have extremely well established flu surveillance networks or even knew what the flu was, and people just started coming to the hospital with ILI and then dying, you would see 200,000 cases with a CFR of 10%. But because we do have widespread, fast, and cheap testing we know that each year 30 million people get the flu and only about 1% go to the hospital, and 10% of those die, so the IFR is about 0.1%.
- dr_dshiv 7y ago
  I'd really appreciate a citation, if you have one, so I can share this.
  - zaroth 7y ago
    Actually it’s different every year. My numbers were apparently a mild year; https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-e... https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html > CDC estimates that the burden of illness during the 2018–2019 season included an estimated 35.5 million people getting sick with influenza, 16.5 million people going to a health care provider for their illness, 490,600 hospitalizations, and 34,200 deaths from influenza (Table 1).
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

bob33212 7y ago

Around .5%

dr_dshiv 7y ago
Thanks but no thanks for an uncited number. In this study, about 9% of non-elective geriatric patients admitted to a hospital die. https://academic.oup.com/ageing/article/34/5/467/40349 https://academic.oup.com/ageing/article/34/5/467/40349 In this study, it was closer to 15%. http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1807-59322009000700002&script=sci_arttext http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1807-59322009000700002&... Now, if they only covid19 test people sick enough to be hospitalized, and if most of the deaths are over 70, shouldn't there be a comparison in the death rates to those patients testing negative?
- bob33212 7y ago
  Not all patients who enter a hospital are admitted for 3+ days.
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    Okay, so that means we need to ask what percent of flu patients admitted to a hospital are out in less than 3 days. Probably not most of them?

zaroth 7y ago

I can tell you that of 200,000 hospital admissions for the flu each year in the US, approximately 20,000 will die, i.e. 10%. To put it another way, if we didn’t have extremely well established flu surveillance networks or even knew what the flu was, and people just started coming to the hospital with ILI and then dying, you would see 200,000 cases with a CFR of 10%. But because we do have widespread, fast, and cheap testing we know that each year 30 million people get the flu and only about 1% go to the hospital, and 10% of those die, so the IFR is about 0.1%.

dr_dshiv 7y ago
I'd really appreciate a citation, if you have one, so I can share this.
- zaroth 7y ago
  Actually it’s different every year. My numbers were apparently a mild year; https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-e... https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html > CDC estimates that the burden of illness during the 2018–2019 season included an estimated 35.5 million people getting sick with influenza, 16.5 million people going to a health care provider for their illness, 490,600 hospitalizations, and 34,200 deaths from influenza (Table 1).
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]