3 ms·

Do you like good news? Then I have good news! You're looking at the numbers for the case fatality rates (CFR). The CFR is not the same as the infection fatalit

Do you like good news? Then I have good news! You're looking at the numbers for the case fatality rates (CFR). The CFR is not the same as the infection fatality rates (IFR) which represent "the fatality rate in all those with infection: the detected disease (cases) and those with an undetected disease (asymptomatic and not tested group)... The IFR will always be lower than the CFR..."[1] Spanish government ran a seroprevalence study and got the following estimates of COVID-19's IFR[2]: For the age group under 50, the estimated IFR is about 0.003% For the age group 50 - 69 yo, it's 0.04% And for those over 70, it's 4.1% [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_fatality_rate#Terminology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_fatality_rate#Terminology [2] https://www.mscbs.gob.es/profesionales/saludPublica/ccayes/alertasActual/nCov-China/documentos/ITCoronavirus.pdf https://www.mscbs.gob.es/profesionales/saludPublica/ccayes/a... Look for the table on page 15

justin66 6y ago
I don't know, an overall IFR of 0.8% is not great news, but thank you for sharing the estimate! (and for reminding me that reading Spanish is not the kind of skill you retain without practicing it every now and then... sigh) Does the document break out IFR-S? Some news came out in recent days indicating IFR-S in the United States was around 1.3%.
- myk9001 6y ago
  "I don't know, an overall IFR of 0.8% is not great news" I agree, 4% IFR of people over 70 is a scary number. In my opinion, governments around the world should really focus on protecting these people. The good news is for people under 70 personal danger from the virus is close to zero. "Does the document break out IFR-S?" Don't know, sorry. Deciphering that table is really easy as the column names are almost the same as the English terms. And Google Translate does a really good job on the footnotes. But reading the whole paper I'll have to leave to someone who actually reads Spanish.
  - justin66 6y ago
    > The good news is for people under 70 personal danger of the virus is close to zero. I feel like I'm missing some key context that would lead a person to declare that with any sense of certainty. It's on a chart and everything! But it's not in agreement with everybody else's charts, and it's early days when it comes to the epidemiology. (and at least in the US, our treatment capabilities are vast, but our testing regime is cartoonishly bad)
    - myk9001 6y ago
      "But it's not in agreement with everybody else's charts, and it's early days when it comes to the epidemiology." I haven't seen any other IFR estimate that included a breakdown by age group from a government or another authoritative source. Do you have anything particular in mind? Is it a certain thing the risk for people under 70 is close to zero? Strictly speaking, no, it isn't. It's unlikely we're going to see precise IFR numbers any time soon. But countries around the world are lifting lockdowns. Where I am, they're lifting it too. So I'll have to evaluate my personal risks without full information. Why do I tend to rely on Spanish numbers? - They are one of the hardest hit countries. If they had relatively few fatalities in the age group under 70, it must be reasonable to assume other countries aren't going to have significantly more. - Don't have a link handy, but numbers published by Italian government had similar numbers of fatalities per each age group. (They didn't try to estimate IFR, though.) - I don't think Spanish govt manipulates their numbers. But -- if anything -- they have an incentive to overestimate the IFR to justify one of the strictest lockdowns and a high number of dead. I'm privileged enough, to be working from home. And staying as safe possible. I just think bad economy can ultimately take lives (not only livelihoods) of more people than COVID-19.
      - eveningcoffee 6y ago
        Here is breakdown for UK https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52403772 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52403772, France https://www.liberation.fr/direct/element/la-repartition-par-age-des-deces-lies-au-coronavirus-ressemble-a-une-mortalite-classique_112144/ https://www.liberation.fr/direct/element/la-repartition-par-... and Belgium https://5minutes.rtl.lu/actu/frontieres/a/1496940.html https://5minutes.rtl.lu/actu/frontieres/a/1496940.html after quick googling.
- makomk 6y ago
  Becuase age and pre-existing conditions have such a huge effect, the overall IFR is going to vary depending on things such how effective measures are at protecting younger people vs. older people. Spain is likely to be particularly bad in this regard - their lockdown was one of the strictest in Europe and their care homes an absolute horror show: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52188820 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52188820
  - justin66 6y ago
    That's a weird dichotomy. What a shame.
eveningcoffee 6y ago
This is an interesting report that intrigues me. Here is 14th May report https://www.mscbs.gob.es/profesionales/saludPublica/ccayes/alertasActual/nCov-China/documentos/Actualizacion_105_COVID-19.pdf https://www.mscbs.gob.es/profesionales/saludPublica/ccayes/a... that is referenced below the table. For some reason they chose to use total from the page 3, 19.155 total by age not 27.321, total by region from page 2. I presume that they do not know the details of about 8000 diseased, but it does not matter when it is the total number. Again while number of >= 70 year old matches the table on the page 3 - 16559, so do age groups <10 and 10-19 but other numbers do not. The table on the page 15 contains only 263 from the age group 50-69 but the table on the 14th May report contains 2303. The IFR for this age group would be then 0.32%. Not very big but not negligible either. Group 20-49 contains only 23 people from the 20-29 but omits 62 people from the group 30-39 and 201 people from the group 40-49. The IFR for this age group would be then 0.03%.

justin66 6y ago

I don't know, an overall IFR of 0.8% is not great news, but thank you for sharing the estimate! (and for reminding me that reading Spanish is not the kind of skill you retain without practicing it every now and then... sigh) Does the document break out IFR-S? Some news came out in recent days indicating IFR-S in the United States was around 1.3%.

myk9001 6y ago
"I don't know, an overall IFR of 0.8% is not great news" I agree, 4% IFR of people over 70 is a scary number. In my opinion, governments around the world should really focus on protecting these people. The good news is for people under 70 personal danger from the virus is close to zero. "Does the document break out IFR-S?" Don't know, sorry. Deciphering that table is really easy as the column names are almost the same as the English terms. And Google Translate does a really good job on the footnotes. But reading the whole paper I'll have to leave to someone who actually reads Spanish.
- justin66 6y ago
  > The good news is for people under 70 personal danger of the virus is close to zero. I feel like I'm missing some key context that would lead a person to declare that with any sense of certainty. It's on a chart and everything! But it's not in agreement with everybody else's charts, and it's early days when it comes to the epidemiology. (and at least in the US, our treatment capabilities are vast, but our testing regime is cartoonishly bad)
  - myk9001 6y ago
    "But it's not in agreement with everybody else's charts, and it's early days when it comes to the epidemiology." I haven't seen any other IFR estimate that included a breakdown by age group from a government or another authoritative source. Do you have anything particular in mind? Is it a certain thing the risk for people under 70 is close to zero? Strictly speaking, no, it isn't. It's unlikely we're going to see precise IFR numbers any time soon. But countries around the world are lifting lockdowns. Where I am, they're lifting it too. So I'll have to evaluate my personal risks without full information. Why do I tend to rely on Spanish numbers? - They are one of the hardest hit countries. If they had relatively few fatalities in the age group under 70, it must be reasonable to assume other countries aren't going to have significantly more. - Don't have a link handy, but numbers published by Italian government had similar numbers of fatalities per each age group. (They didn't try to estimate IFR, though.) - I don't think Spanish govt manipulates their numbers. But -- if anything -- they have an incentive to overestimate the IFR to justify one of the strictest lockdowns and a high number of dead. I'm privileged enough, to be working from home. And staying as safe possible. I just think bad economy can ultimately take lives (not only livelihoods) of more people than COVID-19.
    - eveningcoffee 6y ago
      Here is breakdown for UK https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52403772 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52403772, France https://www.liberation.fr/direct/element/la-repartition-par-age-des-deces-lies-au-coronavirus-ressemble-a-une-mortalite-classique_112144/ https://www.liberation.fr/direct/element/la-repartition-par-... and Belgium https://5minutes.rtl.lu/actu/frontieres/a/1496940.html https://5minutes.rtl.lu/actu/frontieres/a/1496940.html after quick googling.
makomk 6y ago
Becuase age and pre-existing conditions have such a huge effect, the overall IFR is going to vary depending on things such how effective measures are at protecting younger people vs. older people. Spain is likely to be particularly bad in this regard - their lockdown was one of the strictest in Europe and their care homes an absolute horror show: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52188820 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52188820
- justin66 6y ago
  That's a weird dichotomy. What a shame.

eveningcoffee 6y ago

This is an interesting report that intrigues me. Here is 14th May report https://www.mscbs.gob.es/profesionales/saludPublica/ccayes/alertasActual/nCov-China/documentos/Actualizacion_105_COVID-19.pdf https://www.mscbs.gob.es/profesionales/saludPublica/ccayes/a... that is referenced below the table. For some reason they chose to use total from the page 3, 19.155 total by age not 27.321, total by region from page 2. I presume that they do not know the details of about 8000 diseased, but it does not matter when it is the total number. Again while number of >= 70 year old matches the table on the page 3 - 16559, so do age groups <10 and 10-19 but other numbers do not. The table on the page 15 contains only 263 from the age group 50-69 but the table on the 14th May report contains 2303. The IFR for this age group would be then 0.32%. Not very big but not negligible either. Group 20-49 contains only 23 people from the 20-29 but omits 62 people from the group 30-39 and 201 people from the group 40-49. The IFR for this age group would be then 0.03%.