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| Science & Technology |
| COVID-19 Deaths and Incredible WHO Estimates |
| 2020-03-06 |
| CATO Institute via Instapundit [CATP.org] "Death Toll Hits 9 as Outbreak Spreads," was the scary Wall Street Journal headline in print before it was toned down online. COVID-19 deaths at a nursing home and hospital in Washington state were unrelated to the virus spreading "across the U.S." The facts tell us much more about the exceptionally high risks of fatal infection from COVID-19 (or pneumonia or flu) among elderly people living close together in nursing homes or hospitals, many of them already sick. The ongoing COPD-19 outbreak in Kirkland Washington at the Life Care nursing home and Evergreen hospital represents high‐risk concentrations of vulnerable seniors. Among those who died in Washington, all but two were in their 70s or 80s (the other two in their 50s) and most had "underlying health conditions." Evergreen hospital has two more in critical condition, in their 70s and 90s, both with underlying conditions. What we just learned from Washington was already known from China’s experience A February 24 article by Katarina Zimmer in The Scientist provides an excellent summary: "The latest data from China stem from an analysis of nearly 45,000 confirmed cases, and on the whole suggest that the people most likely to develop severe forms of COVID-19 are those with pre‐existing illnesses and the elderly.While less than 1 percent of people who were otherwise healthy died from the disease, the fatality rate for people with cardiovascular disease was 10.5 percent. That figure was 7.3 percent for diabetes patients and around 6 percent for those with chronic respiratory disease, hypertension, or cancer. While overall, 2.3 percent of known cases [in China] proved fatal‐which many experts say is likely an overestimate of the mortality rate, given that many mild cases might go undiagnosed‐patients 80 years or older were most at risk, with 14.8 percent of them dying." ...I suggested that if we took unreported mild cases into account, the actual death rate among infected people outside China may be as low as 0.5%. Skeptics greeted death rates of 0.5‐1.0% as Panglossian heresy. Yet the rigorous February 10 study I cited, from Imperial College London https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-2019-nCoV-severity-10-02-2020.pdf , concluded the global infection fatality ratio was about 1.0. My estimate is lower than 1.0 because I exclude China where (I argue) high fatality rates in Wuhan were exaggerated by overcounting institutionalized elderly with serious infection. ..."Early estimates of the coronavirus death rate from China, the epicenter of the outbreak, have been around 2 percent. But a new report on 1,099 cases from many parts of China, published on Friday in The New England Journal of Medicine, finds a lower rate: 1.4 percent. The coronavirus death rate may be even lower, if ‐ as most experts suspect ‐ there are many mild or symptom‐free cases that have not been detected. The true death rate could turn out to be similar to that of a severe seasonal flu, below 1 percent, according to an editorial published in the journal by Dr. Anthony S. Fauci and Dr. H. Clifford Lane, of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Dr. Robert R. Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2002387 ...On March 4, The New York Times reported, "Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the organization’s director general, said in a news conference in Geneva that... ’Globally, about 3.4 percent of reported Covid‐19 cases have died." https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---3-march-2020 "By comparison," he added, " seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1 percent of those infected." To the newspaper’s credit, The New York Times apparently felt obliged to caution readers that the WHO’s 3.4 percent death rate is quite implausible, if not wildly inaccurate: "The figure does not include mild cases that do not require medical attention and is skewed by Wuhan, where the death rate is several times higher than elsewhere in China. It is also quite possible that there are many undetected cases that would push the mortality rate lower. Still, it was the first time that the organization had offered a global mortality rate for the disease." Ironically, my previous blog quoted Dr. Tedros Adhanom saying, "Most people will have mild disease and get better without needing any special care." Because most cases are mild, as he said, and because mild cases are excluded by definition from "reported cases," the WHO’s alleged 3.4% mortality rate is nothing more than sensationalist nonsense. But, but, but I thought we [the progressive humanity] finally got Trump! |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #8 My mothers retirement home basically had a lock in for a month in which food was delivered to rooms rather than have anyone go to the communal dining area. It was about the Flu but it would have protected them just as well from coronavirus. That should be the sort of thing they do with old folks homes everywhere. Then you just have to worry about the staff and visitors. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2020-03-06 17:48 |
| #7 I'm with g(r)omgoru #3 on this one. For example: Remember the opioid CRISIS that had everyone pulling their hair out a few months ago? Where is it now? Was it/Is it truly a crisis? If so, where is it? |
| Posted by: Tom 2020-03-06 17:33 |
| #6 notes: retirement home should be prime conditions. 108 retires. 6 deaths. Beware mortality rates. it isn't 5.something percent. We need the number recovered and the number dead. Using the number infected is often used and that gives an artificially low rate. |
| Posted by: flash91 2020-03-06 12:13 |
| #5 It has already come to the US, people have already died, and it's just getting started. We are where Italy was 3 weeks ago. If I'm wrong you can say "I told you so" in May. |
| Posted by: Iblis 2020-03-06 10:19 |
| #4 /\ Costco will remember. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2020-03-06 08:31 |
| #3 Betcha by the end of summer, nobody (except pros involved with vaccine) will remember coronavirus. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-03-06 08:27 |
| #2 More people were killed in the recent Tennessee tornado than by COVID-19. This virus is being pumped like crazy by the MSM this morning. Many places are being quarantined because of this virus. However, the political campaigning and political rallies continue without any quarantine. So how much of a threat can the virus really be? |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2020-03-06 08:20 |
| #1 ...high fatality rates in Wuhan were exaggerated by over counting institutionalized elderly with serious infection. Who knew the Chinese had adopted a major strategy of Obamacare? See - Palin and Death Panels |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2020-03-06 06:53 |