
Ask HN: Why are Covid-19 death rates low in US - quietthrow
Serious question. Italy has a ~10% death rate. Spain is pretty higher too. So what’s driving the difference? Is it treatment or otherwise that results in a low death rate for us?<p>US ~70k infections ~1k deaths
Italy  ~75k infections ~7.5k deaths
Spain ~55k infections ~4K deaths.<p>What’s causing the difference? Treatment, numbers misreported or something else ?<p>Data source “johns Hopkins covid dashboard”
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jariel
First, the rate is not very low in the US, relative to places like Germany.

Second, the 'death rate' is not a matter of deaths/cases, because the # of
cases is very much dependent on testing. More testing is more likely to yield
the cases that are not aggressive. So we'll have to do a lot more testing
everywhere to get a real picture.

Third, there's a delay in all of these numbers, they eventually converge, but
if there's a period where there's 'big change' in whatever measure, it will
take a few weeks at least to even crudely converge. The US is just starting
now to get hit with a lot of hospitalizations, so the death rate will probably
spike a little bit.

Long term, it may be due to things like average age, the quality of care, how
hard the hospitals were hit (i.e. if some people were turned away because of
overflow) death rates will be higher.

Of course, the overall death rate/capita (not deaths/infected) will likely to
be due to how hard the nation was able to adapt, shut down etc. and how bad
the inherent r0 was in the first place as there is evidence that it's slower
moving in warmer climates.

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stumpyfr
USA is starting to do a lot of tests. Same for Germany.

So virtually keeping the death rate low.

Other countries are testing only people already sick with a lot of symptoms
(==hospitalized). If we were testing "everyone", dead rate would be lower in
Italy,...,...

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wallflower
Most hospitals in the U.S. are only starting to reach the point of ICU
overcapacity, staff shortages, and ventilators. Italy and Spain are about 1-2
weeks ahead of the U.S.

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quietthrow
That makes sense top of my head. Hospitals overfilled with patients and
understaffed with medical pros and resources means more sick people will go
untreated and hence higher probability of deaths. So if what you state holds
water then in two/three weeks we should be seeing the rate go up drastically.
Right in time for the economy to be “raring” to go according the nations
leaders and imbecile in chief

