
The Case Fatality Ratio of the Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) - jstanley
http://blog.zorinaq.com/case-fatality-ratio-ncov/
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anonsivalley652
I was just watching Democracy Now! live on their website as of writing. It
turns out there is massive undercounting of infections and deaths. Apparently,
in Wuhan, there are a few dead people lying in the streets and in cars because
the civilian medical examiner/coroners-equivalents are too scared and/or under
curfew preventing them from handling bodies. On the upside, the Chinese
government commissioned several thousand beds-worth of world-class, negative-
air pressure quarantine hospitals in a little over a week. And sadly, the
doctor, Dr. Li Wenliang, a 34-year-old ophthalmologist, who discovered
coronavirus and warned the world has died at Wuhan Central Hospital from it on
Friday after returning to Wuhan to treat patients and then contracted it
himself. The more accurate infection and death numbers should be multiplied by
viewers between 2x and 10x when it is reported by Western media because the
information is both delayed and undercounted, and the few citizen journalists
and expats foreign journalists with local knowledge believe this is the case.
Not to freak out, because this isn't the Spanish Flu, SARS or the 1968
pandemic, but to more accurately account for the delay and underreporting.

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didericis
I’m not an epidemiologist and don’t know much about past pandemics, but this
seems a lot worse than SARS to me. I’m not sure it’s as bad as this article
suggests it could be, and am inclined to agree with the caveat towards the end
about it having infected far more people than are being identified due to many
having only mild symptoms.

I’ve heard that SARS was underreported as well, and I know the SARS mortality
rate was about 10%, but still, this seems to be much harder to contain and
likely to infect many more people, despite the extreme quarantine efforts.
It’s already surpassed SARS in terms of infections and is very close to
beating SARS in terms of deaths, with the numbers we currently have, and in a
far shorter time period.

I don’t think it’s going to spread as rapidly elsewhere as it has in China, as
it seems there was kind of a perfect storm of dense crowds, meal sharing,
incentive to cover things up, and lack of early quarantine measures due to the
lunar new year. So while I think it’s unlikely to end up being as bad the
Spanish flu because those ideal early conditions are no longer in effect, it
doesn’t seem entirely crazy to think it could be comparably impactful
eventually.

Obviously I hope I’m wrong. And again, I’m not an expert on any of this, so my
opinion should be taken as rudimentarily informed speculation. I know very
little about the Spanish Flu or the 1968 pandemic, so my ability to make well
informed comparisons is limited. It just seems like this has the potential to
get a significantly worse before it gets better.

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photon-torpedo
Agreed that the naive method will lead to underestimation of the CFR. Though
I'm not sure if it's really as high as estimated here. Looking at the numbers
reported from provinces in China other than Hubei (from
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2019%E2%80%932...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2019%E2%80%9320_Wuhan_coronavirus_outbreak)),
as of 5 Feb 2020 there have been 14 reported deaths but 520 reported
recoveries. This puts the CFR at 14/534 = 2.6%.

I can only guess why the CFR in Hubei seems to be so much larger. My guess is
that the medical system in Hubei is simply overwhelmed by the number of
patients, and that only severe cases get treated in hospital and diagnosed.
Patients with mild symptoms don't get diagnosed and the majority of them
recover.

Still, caution is advised. Everybody take care and be safe!

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Forgivenessizer
It makes zero sense at all, actually. Perhaps there's something about the
virus that people don't understand yet.

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mytailorisrich
I'm not sure it's responsible, or remotely true, to claim that the fatality
ratio of this virus may be as high as MERS...

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Forgivenessizer
What's the fataility ratio of coronoviruses in animal populations? Do they
ever reach such a level?

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himinlomax
MERS is a coronavirus, humans are animals ... not sure what you're getting at
...

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Forgivenessizer
Yet it seems impossible it could be so fatal?

