
Mortality rates for Covid-19 may be 15.2% outside of China based on WHO data - headmelted
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30195-X/fulltext
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enzo1982
> We re-estimated mortality rates by dividing the number of deaths on a given
> day by the number of patients with confirmed COVID-19 infection 14 days
> before.

This seems seriously flawed to the point of being outright stupid and
irresponsible to spread in my opinion.

They basically assume the number of confirmed infections 14 days ago better
represents the real number of infections on that date than the number of
confirmed infections today. That does not seem right.

1\. Infected persons test positive for the virus only after it breaks out, so
the number of confirmed cases is always lagging behind the real number of
infections.

2\. As they mention in the article, but choose to ignore, a large number of
infected people are asymptomatic or show only mild symptoms and will usually
not be tested. The UK government yesterday assumed the real number of
infections to be 10-20x higher than the number of confirmed cases. [1]

So taking the - IMHO still valid - approximation of 2-3% mortality rate for
confirmed COVID-19 cases and considering the assumption of an infection rate
10-20x higher than the number of confirmed cases, the real mortality rate
should be in the ballpark of 0.2%.

[1] [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-
diseas...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-
disease/coronavirus-news-uk-cases-deaths-numbers-covid-19-latest-live/)

~~~
headmelted
“ a large number of infected people are asymptomatic or show only mild
symptoms and will usually not be tested”

No.

WHO, China, Italy and South Korea have all looked and the hypothesised
majority of asymptomatic cases doesn’t exist.

China did 320k background tests in one province and had a 0.5% positive rate.
There’s some asymptomatic cases, but no evidence suggests there are massive
numbers.

~~~
enzo1982
These 320k tests were performed in the Guangdong province which has a
population of 113 million and ~10,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases, or about
0.009% of the population.

If they found a 0.5% positive rate on background tests there, that would
suggest the real number of cases to be hundreds of thousands in that province
alone.

You seem to be referring to this report:
[https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/25/new-data-from-china-
butt...](https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/25/new-data-from-china-buttress-
fears-about-high-coronavirus-fatality-rate-who-expert-says/)

That article suggests that the 320,000 tests were not a background test, but
they tested "worried people [who] flooded fever clinics to be tested". Actual
numbers across all population would hopefully be much less than 0.5%.

The article also states "The claim [that there's not huge transmission beyond
what you can see clinically] was quickly challenged by an infectious diseases
expert who serves on a committee that advises the WHO's health emergencies
program.".

------
Blackstone4
I'm not convinced since maybe in the early days only the worst cases were
being tested so they may be missing a significant proportion of the
population. The article itself didn't balance the strengths or weaknesses of
their approach which would be helpful. Open to being told otherwise.

~~~
headmelted
I’d refer back to the absence of evidence for many asymptomatic cases relative
to symptomatic cases.

WHO looked at 320k background tests and less than 0.5% were positive.

~~~
Blackstone4
From the article: "We re-estimated mortality rates by dividing the number of
deaths on a given day by the number of patients with confirmed COVID-19
infection 14 days before."

From this I understand that if a patient was infected but was not tested and
confirmed until a later date, they would not be included in the denominator.
Hence the denominator may be artificially low and thereby inflating the
mortality rate.

------
forkexec
?

Higher CFR depends largely on male gender, older age, and/or pre-existing
conditions, with some random healthy people who also succumb to it.

------
Camille_Fr
15.2% omg ... I have so many questions without clear answers... Do asthmatics
have a higher case-fatality rate? Is it true that when we catch the
coronavirus, it leaves serious after-effects on our health?

