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Current Events => The DUmpster => Topic started by: dutch508 on February 11, 2020, 08:51:08 PM

Title: 2% mortality from coronavirus? I don't think so.
Post by: dutch508 on February 11, 2020, 08:51:08 PM
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The_jackalope (1,506 posts)
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212979310

2% mortality from coronavirus? I don't think so.


A lot of us have been arriving at a mortality rate for Coronavirus by dividing deaths by infections. For instance, the current numbers are: 1,112 deaths / 44,789 cases for a "mortality rate" around 2.5%.

I was just looking at the coronavirus tracking page https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/ and something clicked. The number we should be looking at is the number of resolved cases that died and the number of resolved cases that recovered. The disease has now been active long enough to allow us to build up a statistically representative sample of resolutions, both recoveries and deaths.

I realized as I looked at the numbers on that page that every case will eventually move from the "active" to the "resolved" category. At that point, ceteris paribus of course, the ratio of deaths to recoveries will be about the same as it is now, but applied to the full population of infections. And that number is not a comforting 2%

In fact, out of a total infected population of 44,789, 5,641 cases have now resolved. Of those, 1,112 have died and 4,529 have recovered. The other 39,148 cases have not yet resolved - they are still sick.

It looks to me as though by the time the illness burns itself out, the death rate will look more like 20% than 2%. That puts it firmly in the category of the 1918 Spanish flu.

It's no wonder the epidemiologists are freaking out.

What's 20% of 65% of the world population, numbnutz?

 :whistling:

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Star Member Fresh_Start (10,320 posts)

1. I saw that too...but the died versus recovered...probably is only the people

admitted to hospitals...
the people who recovered at home because it didn't compound into life threatening situation are probably not in the recovered numbers. I'm praying recovered at home is a big number

It's probably fine... I mean, the Chinese are just welding the infected into their homes and shit....

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eallen (2,888 posts)

8. Yep. Mortality likely is less than 2%, because many people infected likely never get seen.

even still, 2% of 60% of 8 billion is what?

4,800,000,000 ... Oh...  :o

96,000,000 fatalities...   :whistling:

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Star Member dewsgirl (10,918 posts)

3. I have been following this story very closely and yes the

mortality rate, when all is said and done will be much higher. Something the media doesn't touch is the extremely low recovery rate.
I'm tired of these flu comparisons, you don't lockdown more than 400,000,000 people, because of the flu. I saw something this morning where in the early days of the Spanish Flu, guess what the newspaper's did? .....compared it to the flu.

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Star Member SWBTATTReg (9,225 posts)

4. When news of this first came out, I heard up to a 10% mortality rate...a horrible figure...

perhaps no longer 10% as earlier reported, but then again, any mortality is horrible. And what actions has our commander in chief dictated? Restrictions on travelers, put other travelers in isolation for some amount of time, and ... what else? No running around getting more funds to those researchers to spearhead a cure if possible, what else? I haven't heard of any other steps undertaken. The one big one prior to the coronavirus, is rump cutting the CDC's budget. Smart.

10% of 4.8 billion... 480,000,000 people...

the estimated 2019 United States population (August 2019) is 329,450,000 million.

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Star Member Drahthaardogs (5,810 posts)

6. No.

Dear God just no. They are freaking out because the R-naught is 3 to 4, which is ridiculously high. The resolved number lags due to reporting.

The death rate is probably lower. There are likely MANY mild cases not reported.

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PSPS (8,964 posts)

14. And your medical degree is from where?

 :popcorn:

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The_jackalope (1,506 posts)

15. My degree is in computer science.

That just means I can do long division with the help of a calculator.

Please feel free to think for yourself.

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PSPS (8,964 posts)

69. All well and good but it takes more than that to understand epidemiology

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The_jackalope (1,506 posts)

74. No, I'll leave that to the epidemiologists.

Out here in amateur-land, I noticed an odd factoid and commented on it.

I'm not going to try and derive R-nought or make quarantine recommendations or try to predict the eventual number of deaths. I just remark on what I've noticed.

A while ago I did make a projection of a possible 180,000 cases by Feb 28 based on a quadratic curve fit. I've backed off from that based on my perception that the curve may be entering a sigmoid inflection. If that is true, I have no idea what the saturation point of the curve will be, or how the death-rate curve might respond.

It's like my response to climate change projections. I think it's very useful for people to wonder how bad things could get, on the premise that forewarned is forearmed.

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Star Member Demsrule86 (39,247 posts)

17. The math is the math and It is probably worse as China has been lying IMHO. I am a trained Biologist/ Biochemist with a minor in Math/Statistics, Computers and Chemistry also English literature but I digress. I have been really worried for a while now. You don't quarantine entire cities for a 2% death rate. Those of us who studied 1917 have been holding our breath with every flu epidemic...is this the 'one'? There is always 'one' at some point. And this looks very bad.

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Star Member Drahthaardogs (5,810 posts)

32. You do when its transmitted via air droplets and fomites

And it has an R-nought of 4.

It is riduculously contagious, so even with a fatality rate of 2%, you can expect stupid high infection rates.

2% is a lot if infection rates go over 65% (which I suspect it will). The R-nought is absurdly high

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Star Member MontanaMama (11,293 posts)

31. I went on the USPS website today

to do some international shipping for my business. There was a banner at the top of the Click and Ship page that says:

ALERT: USPS WILL BE TEMPORARILY SUSPENDING THE GUARANTEE ON PRIORITY MAIL EXPRESS INTERNATIONAL DESTINED FOR CHINA AND HONG KONG, EFFECTIVE MONDAY, FEB. 10, 2020, DUE TO WIDESPREAD AIRLINE CANCELLATIONS AND RESTRICTIONS INTO THIS AREA.


Slightly off topic from your OP, but this was unsettling to me.

 :whistling:
Title: Re: 2% mortality from coronavirus? I don't think so.
Post by: SVPete on February 11, 2020, 08:58:09 PM
Given how horribly badly the government of Wuhan handled things and how CYA-oriented bureaucrats are generally, why would any DUpipo think accurate numbers are being reported?