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I am not sure if it’s even possible to give the fatality rate before everything is over because we don’t know if an infected patient eventually dies from the di
by xenonite 7y ago
I am not sure if it’s even possible to give the fatality rate before everything is over because we don’t know if an infected patient eventually dies from the disease with a long delay. This is why I totally expect a fatality rate that is higher than we can observe today.
- pmontra 7y agoEven after it's over we'll probably never know how many people got infected and were never tested nor showed any symptoms.
- xenonite 7y agoAnyhow, in this case it should not count as a SARS-CoV-2 fatality, so this doesn't affect the fatality rate.
- nitrogen 7y agoAn asymptomatic infection should still count as an infection, so it should lower the infection fatality rate. I don't have expertise in this area, but I think both infected fatality rate and symptomatic fatality rate are useful.
- xenonite 7y agoFor the study, they tested a representative sample that includes asymptomatic cases. Hence, one can assume a known, constant number of infected cases. And to complete the study they should, as far as I understand it, wait until they know how many of those infected die in order to calculate the fatality rate. I don’t think it’s relevant here if further people are infected after testing for the illness, and there shouldn’t be a need to monitor the new cases or even check if they die (it shouldn’t be necessary for the study).
- rimliu 7y agoThat's what serological tests are for.