
Covid-19 has a 0.05% fatality rate in people under 65 without comorbidities - jtdaugh
https://twitter.com/jtdaugh/status/1263693957403480064
======
vannevar
The mortality rate is not the only consideration. People don't want to die,
sure, but they also don't want to spend a couple of weeks in the hospital. And
_that_ risk, even for those under 65, is much, much higher: at least 1 in 100
(Source:[https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page](https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page)).

Not only do individuals not want to spend time in the hospital, we as a
society don't want them there either. Assuming we need 60% of the population
to recover in order to achieve herd immunity, and assuming we somehow isolate
_all_ of our 65+ year olds from the virus, that would mean almost 2M
hospitalizations in the US.

~~~
jtdaugh
I can't find hospitalizations broken out by underlying illnesses, but if among
each age bracket we assume the % of deaths associated with underlying illness
holds as the % of hospitalizations associated with underlying illness, then we
get a "healthy under 65" Hospitalization Rate of 0.3% to 0.5%.

Under 65:

7.4M people

1.55M infected

26,000 hospitalizations

4,548 "healthy" hospitalizations (16% of deaths under 65 have no
comorbidities. Using same rate here).

800k-1.2M infected w/o comorbidities depending on "healthy rate"

4,548 / 1M = 0.45%

~~~
vannevar
Good point. I was assuming using the rate per capita would be best case, but
you're right, you'd also need underlying illness rates. I think the point
stands though, that hospitalization rates for otherwise healthy patients under
65 is an order of magnitude higher than their mortality rate.

------
rpiguy
While I agree that the press is exaggerating the deadliness of the disease,
this number is also misleading. As many will point out, the vast majority of
US citizens have at least one comorbidity (obesity, diabetes, heart trouble,
smoking, asthma, etc.)

You have to go to the very young (under 25) to find a sizable population
without a comorbidity.

I think it is more useful to point out that mortality is skewed heavily toward
age and whether or not you are in a nursing home. Seniors outside of nursing
homes are doing an order of magnitude better than those in homes.

Over half of US counties have no COVID deaths. The number are skewed terribly
by NY/NJ as well.

~~~
Someone
Also, 0.05% sounds like a tiny number, but is larger than mortality
probability of all other causes in the USA for people in the 1-21 age bracket,
still is half of it at age 33 and about a quarter of it at age 45
([https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html](https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html)),
and that’s even with those statistics including people with comorbidities.

Looking at it another way, if the entire population were healthy, that’s
160.000 deaths. That’s four times the number of yearly traffic deaths, double
the number of overdose deaths (both already high for comparable countries)

Those 160.000 might not return every year, but if this behaves as a typical
virus, it could mutate enough to return every few years.

~~~
jtdaugh
Another way to look at it: ~700,000 people under 65 die in the US each year.

~~~
verdverm
Or ~240,000K each month in total (across all demographics)

(~8000/day)

------
jtdaugh
Spreadsheet with data and sources:

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bKbRccSVz-u5HtoLK0zb...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bKbRccSVz-u5HtoLK0zbctSh0JeCTqNggw5fv3SQRuY/edit?usp=sharing)

