4 ms·

Well, so far judging by deaths / cases on plague.com, we're looking at 4% fatality rate. The average seasonal flu fatality rate is 0.1%. The mortality rate for

Well, so far judging by deaths / cases on plague.com, we're looking at 4% fatality rate. The average seasonal flu fatality rate is 0.1%. The mortality rate for H1N1 was 0.02%. For Ebola, the average mortality rate is around 50%. China severely restricted travel and managed to keep the infection rate around 0.008% of their population. We're still in the early stages in the US, with about 0.00269% of the population infected. In the US, about 8% of the population gets the seasonal flu every year on average. That's about 28 million people. Take 4% of that 28 million people and we'd be looking at 1.12 million people dying from the flu every year if it had the same 4% mortality rate that Covid19 has. So sheltering in place to limit transmission and keep the number of cases low could save many, many lives. None of the above estimates take into account the risk we run of running out of hospital beds and ventilators. That would increase the mortality rate.

enchiridion 7y ago
Thank you for explaining. Any idea what the mortality increase would be?
- TheCoelacanth 7y ago
  10-15% of cases require hospitalization. The US has hospital beds for about 0.2% of the population, so possibly 10% or higher mortality rate.
  - gremlinsinc 7y ago
    To piggy back.. this gets really bad because you have the question: "How many people need critical care per year, or in a given month". Now, how many of these people die if there IS no critical care to give? No room in the inn so to speak? I'm sure they're working on jerryrigged work arounds like using schools and hotels, but still it's not the same as a real ICU... plus it's highly possible a lot of these people could come in with a heart attack or a car crash and get COVID19, and die from the virus when their other injuries they would've survived, or they might've even survived COVID19 by itself without the extra ailments. Not to mention, it's possible all other patients in hospital could end up w/ it if it's not contained well, and again same thing as above. What about immune compromised patients, like Cancer patients who need chemo... they could have to postpone treatment (not enough staff to administer) which could cause them to die..or they could show up, get infected and die within 2 weeks from COVID19 + already weakened immune system.... How many people feel safe breaking quarantine to go give blood? We're having a major blood shortage right now. They say it's safe to give, but pretty sure if someone else was there or if the blood drawers are infected you'll come home with it... There's no way they can guarantee you won't... So if the blood shortage continues to worsen, how many lives will that kill as a result... I mean you could go further and say some might starve, but I don't think we're at that yet... but it's a possibility esp. w/ panic buying and supply chain woes... but I think not till summer. There's going to be a major issue with migratory workers who work on farms..so we might be short on crops and farm goods this year. Also according to scientists we need to social distance for an entire year at the least... This could cause a lot of depression, anxiety, and suicide too.
    - enchiridion 7y ago
      That's a good point. I think the recently recovered corona patients have a duty to give blood for this reason.
muse900 7y ago
To add to that, I was listening to an expert from Standford saying that the data set we currently have is not correct and we don't have the full picture. We might be seeing X deaths in china but that might not be true, due to less testing etc currently, so the mortality rate is a bit skewed.
TheGrumpyBrit 7y ago
The problem is, we're not testing people until they're already in hospital. So that 4% mortality rate is very much skewed. The vast majority of people who show symptoms are just self isolating and getting better without ever being tested. We have no clue how many of those people actual had COVID-19 and how many had something else, although the spread we have observed would suggest that it's probably on the higher side. Given the lack of availability of testing, and the fact the the available testing is (rightly) being reserved for those most in need, I don't believe we can rely on the current mortality figures as any measure of accuracy. They're probably more like 0.5% at best.

enchiridion 7y ago

Thank you for explaining. Any idea what the mortality increase would be?

TheCoelacanth 7y ago
10-15% of cases require hospitalization. The US has hospital beds for about 0.2% of the population, so possibly 10% or higher mortality rate.
- gremlinsinc 7y ago
  To piggy back.. this gets really bad because you have the question: "How many people need critical care per year, or in a given month". Now, how many of these people die if there IS no critical care to give? No room in the inn so to speak? I'm sure they're working on jerryrigged work arounds like using schools and hotels, but still it's not the same as a real ICU... plus it's highly possible a lot of these people could come in with a heart attack or a car crash and get COVID19, and die from the virus when their other injuries they would've survived, or they might've even survived COVID19 by itself without the extra ailments. Not to mention, it's possible all other patients in hospital could end up w/ it if it's not contained well, and again same thing as above. What about immune compromised patients, like Cancer patients who need chemo... they could have to postpone treatment (not enough staff to administer) which could cause them to die..or they could show up, get infected and die within 2 weeks from COVID19 + already weakened immune system.... How many people feel safe breaking quarantine to go give blood? We're having a major blood shortage right now. They say it's safe to give, but pretty sure if someone else was there or if the blood drawers are infected you'll come home with it... There's no way they can guarantee you won't... So if the blood shortage continues to worsen, how many lives will that kill as a result... I mean you could go further and say some might starve, but I don't think we're at that yet... but it's a possibility esp. w/ panic buying and supply chain woes... but I think not till summer. There's going to be a major issue with migratory workers who work on farms..so we might be short on crops and farm goods this year. Also according to scientists we need to social distance for an entire year at the least... This could cause a lot of depression, anxiety, and suicide too.
  - enchiridion 7y ago
    That's a good point. I think the recently recovered corona patients have a duty to give blood for this reason.

muse900 7y ago

To add to that, I was listening to an expert from Standford saying that the data set we currently have is not correct and we don't have the full picture. We might be seeing X deaths in china but that might not be true, due to less testing etc currently, so the mortality rate is a bit skewed.

TheGrumpyBrit 7y ago

The problem is, we're not testing people until they're already in hospital. So that 4% mortality rate is very much skewed. The vast majority of people who show symptoms are just self isolating and getting better without ever being tested. We have no clue how many of those people actual had COVID-19 and how many had something else, although the spread we have observed would suggest that it's probably on the higher side. Given the lack of availability of testing, and the fact the the available testing is (rightly) being reserved for those most in need, I don't believe we can rely on the current mortality figures as any measure of accuracy. They're probably more like 0.5% at best.