Contrary to Fox Noise, Coronavirus is not like the flu. Simple numbers I found:

[garybeck]

Republicans are mocking the coronavirus. The memo they must be passing around says its just like the flu... 25,000 americans die from the flu every year, and not one notices so we have nothing to worry about.
Let's check the facts.

Ever year, approximately 35,000,000 americans get the flu
Of those, approximately 35,000 people die. That is about one out of every thousand people who get the flu.
That is a mortality rate of 0.1%

THE MORTALITY RATE OF CORONAVIRUS IS OVER 3%.
THAT IS OVER 30 TIMES THE MORTALITY RATE OF THE FLU.
THAT IS WHY THEY ARE NOT THE SAME.

The flu is transmitted similarly to the coronavirus. It is fair to consider that a similar number of people will coronavirus to the flu. That means 35,000,000 people will get it.
with a mortality rate of 3%, that means

OVER A MILLION PEOPLE WOULD DIE IN THE US FROM THE CORONAVIRUS


this is not rocket science
it doesn't take a doctor to understand simple math.

So the next time you hear an asswipe republican comparing the flu to the coronavirus and saying every year 25,000 people die of the flu and no one cares (WHICH I HAVE HEARD MANY TIMES EVEN ON FOX SPORTS RADIO)... ask them if they took math in 5th grade, because all you have to do is multiply 35,000,000 by 3% and the answer is NOT 25,000, it's 1 million.

references:
US flu incidence rate and mortality rate: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html
Coronovirus mortality rate: https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---3-march-2020

[FBaggins]

1. I wish people would stop doing that

We don’t have nearly enough data to state definitively what the death rate is for this one.

But we do have decades of experience showing that the initial calculations for almost every virus are WELL above the final number.

[garybeck]

3. we know that the death rate so far is 3.4% globally.

[FBaggins]

8. Nope... it isn't

We know for a fact that there are many people with the virus who have not surfaced in the denominator. We also know with almost as much certainty that there are a bunch of people in China who died of respiratory disease that got “scored” in the numerator but we’re never tested for this specific virus.

The WHO performed the calculation, but not a single person there would agree that if a million people caught the virus, 34,000 of them would die.

[defacto7]

14. It's true that we have only preliminary estimates..

and those estimates vary quite a bit from one place to another for many reasons. No, we can't put a definite number on it but there are reasonable estimates; though speculative they are the best educated guess. The final figure will only come when it's final. Before that time we can't ignore what data we do have.

[uponit7771]

24. Yes, we can't go on speculation just what we know. The math from WHAT WE KNOW is this is worse

... and we should govern accordingly until we know something else.

SARS and MERS had a 20 and 30% death rate and Swine whooped our asses here in North America

[mmbrevo]

25. Is it not the same for the flu?

Many people get the flu, yet gounreported.

[defacto7]

12. This is not true.

Both SARS and MERS had preliminary death rates at 2% and 3% respectively. The final tally was 10% and 30% respectively.

[Pobeka]

20. Thank you. There's a huge misconception about the entire population mortality rate.

The harvard (?) epidemeologist (video was here on DU), thinks about 98% of people who are infected will be so asymptomatic it would not warrant a doctor visit. So of the 2% that need attention, 3-4% will die. That gives us total population mortality rate of about 0.06 to 0.08 percent.

When I calculate the numbers for Wuhan I'm also getting that order of magnitude.

I hope people can get a better grip on what these mortality rates mean. 1 in 50 people are not going to die from this.

[DanTex]

41. That's not what the Harvard epidemiologist said, at all.

That epidemiologist is Marc Lipsitch, and he speculated that maybe half of the people infected would be asymptomatic, not 98%. Please do not spread misinformation, and if you're not sure, look for an actual link.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-infection-outbreak-worldwide-virus-expert-warning-today-2020-03-02/

[Pobeka]

42. You're right, I misinterpreted what he said.

He said the proportion of asymptomatic cases is unknown. He did say 40-70% would be infected, and of those, 1-2% would die. So, given a 50% infection rate, globally, .5% to 1% would die. I'm sure those should be taken as approximations or general order of magnitudes.

Thank you for pointing out my mistake.

[Recursion]

32. The hospitalization rates are the bigger problem

Lots of people don't die, they "just" have severe organ damage.

[Crunchy Frog]

50. Initial calculations were lower. They've gone up.

[enki23]

51. We hope that's true. The original SARS was, early, estimated at 3%. It was 9%.

We don't think that's the case here, but it's important to remember that we can miscount infections, yes, but also deaths, and recoveries.

[Mike 03]

2. Thank you for reminding folks of this.

Also, here's an interesting Tweet from yesterday afternoon.

Link to tweet

[garybeck]

4. that is some scary sh*t

[pat_k]

5. Wouldn't be "fine," even if mortality rate were revised down...

Far more deadly, and apparently causes irreversible lung damage in the more severe cases who survive.

Yep. Just "like" the flu.

Not!

The thing is, even if it were a new strain of pathogen that had the same morbidity and mortality rate as the flu, containment would still be VITAL:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213048575

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

6. That 3% mortality is those who had symptoms severe enough to seek

medical help. Not everyone who has gotten the virus.

Meanwhile, continued testing shows that most people who test positive have mild or no symptoms. 3% of all who get it are NOT dying from this corona virus. It's far too soon to know what the true mortality rate is. It may well be close to that of regular flu, although it probably is somewhat higher.

Put it this way. If flu deaths were only counted against all of those who were admitted to a hospital will flu symptoms, and no one who stayed home and recovered without medical help was counted, than the death rate from flu would look frighteningly high. A quick on line search says that from 210,000 to 370,000 people were hospitalized this year because of flu. That's actually a huge spread, and I wonder why that's so great. Let's see, 210,000 people hospitalized, 30,000 die. Or even, 30,000 die of the 370,000 hospitalized. We're looking at a mortality rate ranging from 8% to 14%. In reality, most people recover from flu.

And even if the 3% mortality rate applied to every single person who got this corona virus, dare I point out that 97% will live?

[garybeck]

9. your point is?

so if 97% of the people who get it survive and a million people die, we shouldn't care?

i accept your argument that there is grey area between defining who has it and who reports it.
but you are forgetting the same thing happens with the flu. many people get it and don't report it and they do fine. I know several people who probably got the flu this year and did not go to the hospital.

you are also ignoring the fact that not everyone counted as having it now has been to a hospital.

but your point is valid.

but you are also ignoring the fact that there is a vaccine for the flu and there is not one for the coronavirus. and there are specific treatments for the flu and no specific treatment for coronavirus.

if you add all that up, it is very reasonable to say that the mortality rate of the coronavirus is significantly higher than that of the flu, so it is extremely misleading and disingenuous to compare them and say that because only 25,000 people die of the flu that we can expect the same from this virus. that is simply not true. the fact is that many of the people who have already died from coronavirus would NOT have died if they got the flu.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

17. My point is that no where near 3% of all who get the disease are dying.

I don't understand why people here don't get that. The majority of people who get this have no symptoms or mild symptoms. You might reread my paragraph about flu deaths vs flu hospitalizations to get what I'm trying to say. Right now, only those who've been hospitalized are being counted. If only flu sufferers who were hospitalized were counted, the death rate from flu would seem staggeringly high.

And who knows what anyone will die of? Those who die from flu don't die from cancer. Or being hit by a car.

What is clear is that most of those who've died are elderly and or have pre-existing health conditions. That's a simple factual statement. Different people have different risk factors for all kinds of things.

Oh, and smoking is, from what I've read, a huge risk factor here. 68% of Chinese men smoke. And a lot of their cities have hideously polluted air, which doesn't help either.

[Dem2]

45. Why did China have to build 2 hospitals in record time?

What are the odds that my 85 year old mother with a history of asthma will survive this virus?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

46. To warehouse people.

It's that simple. Somehow I seriously doubt that the patients who were sent to those two hospitals really got quality care.

The initial question to ask about your mother is, realistically, what are her chances of actually getting the virus? They are probably lower than you think. But yeah, doing everything you can to protect her is a good idea.

[Dem2]

47. I wish I had some idea what the odds were of her getting it

Without testing large numbers of people who came in contact with a carrier with or without symptoms, I have no idea if I'll lose a 2nd parent after losing my dad just 15 days ago.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

48. Currently there is no realistic was to calculate those odds.

You can look at what's been happening elsewhere, and try to extrapolate. And ask some questions. Is she in a nursing home or even an assisted living facility? How good is that place? How readily does she get sick in "normal" times? Does she typically get flu, whether or not she gets a flu vaccine every year? How about other illnesses? Just how bad is her asthma?

If someone has no symptoms, there's no way of knowing if they're an actual carrier. If every single person in the country were to be tested (and it's hard to imagine 330 million being tested) then we might start to get a handle on it.

[Crunchy Frog]

53. They're not just counting those who have been hospitalized. Where did you get that idea?

They're counting anyone who's tested positive, including the ones with mild enough cases to self treat at home.

[GulfCoast66]

10. Your last sentence really comes off poorly. Do you know what a 3% death rate looks.

For the economy and nation. The 1917 flu had a death rate of 2% and the dead were piling up on door steps in major cities due to the fact that so many people, most who would survive were so sick services just broke down. Most major cities were collecting the dead and burying them in mass graves. At that rate at least 4 people you know would be dead.

And the country was more rural and agrarian than now. My grandfather told his kids about it. Even in rural Arkansas he knew people who died but they were self sufficient and could feed themselves and their sick family in the small nearby town.

The damage of a pandemic just starts with the deaths. The resulting breakdown of services is just as deadly. And while true they often lose strength it took 2 years for the Spanish Flu to burn out

Will this one be that bad? Maybe not. Probably not. But the only safe course of action is to assume it will be and prepare for the worst.

It’s apparent this administration is spending more time on messaging than preparation.

Sorry if you take offense. I do not mean to offend you. But your final sentence just struck me as very insensitive. If 50 million Americans catch this, and it appears it might be that contagious it would mean 1,500,000 dead Americans. I can’t take consolation from that.

[Pachamama]

13. See my post#11 giving an explanation of Mortality rates in the epidemiology world

The 3.4% is actually low - it’s currently closer to 5.8% and unless fewer people of known infected cases are in serious to critical condition, WHO will raise the death rate again.

[defacto7]

15. It's figured on the percentage of deaths where there is an outcome.

Those who are still ill cannot be counted. But all who recover and all who died are counted. If there are those in Asia who never were on the record then they also don't know if they died from covid.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

22. It still does not count the many who have mild or no symptoms.

Again, if we were to calculate flu deaths only as the percentage of those who go into hospital and then die, the flu mortality would be 8-14%. But it's not. Because most people don't need to seek medical attention. Just as those exposed to the corona virus don't usually get sick enough to seek medical attention.

I do not understand why people here insist that the death rate is so high, when it simply is not. Yes, people are dying. But vastly more aren't.

[mr_lebowski]

29. Have we heard from the professional epidemiologists that put out these numbers

on the regular, like for a living ... yet?

I'm guess many of them are capable of taking these obscure, arcane facts, and, you know ... like, 'adjusting the numbers accordingly', using like 'modelling' and shit.

Is the best anyone has gotten so far just us punters doing maffs like 'X deaths/Y reported cases' and coming up with '3.4%'?

I've never heard anyone say 'reported cases' is synonymous with 'hospitalized', BTW. Not sure where you're getting that idea from

[defacto7]

40. They probably say it because epidemiologists

worldwide say it. I'd love to accept lower figures but I have to follow the WHO and the messages from scientists and medical institutions. Let's hope they are wrong. For the record they have been wrong in past epidemics. The estimates of SARS and MERS were 2% and 3% death rates respectively during their epidemics. The final numbers were 10% and 30% when they were over. So yes, the experts can be incorrect. Let's hope for the best. In the mean time I'll plan accordingly.

[Squinch]

7. Fox News, nothing! I'm seeing it here!

[Pachamama]

11. The Case Fatality Rate (CFR) is currently 6% - the 3.4% is not the correct number

Notice no one from WHO, CDC, NIH etc will ever say with certainty that the death or mortality rate is X. In fact they know that number is a moving target and can also be based only on “Known” cases and be only factually and conclusively calculated based on “Cases with Outcome”

Currently, there are 101,955 “Known reported Cases” (and assuming all reported that were known”). There are likely many times that number not reported because they are “unknown” and are asymptomatic and spreading it around with an Ro transmission rate twice of the seasonal flu. (Ro for seasonal flu is 1-1.5 persons infected from infected person and the COVID-19 virus has a Ro rate of 2-3 persons infected from infected person).

Of the 101,955 known reported cases, 59,589 (approx. 58%) are what is known as “Cases with Outcome”. There are only two possible outcomes:

1) You Are Dead (Currently 3466 dead as of March 6th, 2020

2) You Recovered (Currently 56,123 of cases with Outcome recovered as of March 6th, 2020)

This is a 5.8 CFR of the known cases with Outcome. A definitive number. This is the number to be watching and is going to likely be 1-2 years from now this or higher and after there is a vaccine and the epidemic is over that historical references to “death rate” of COVID-19 will end up being. Expect in coming months the official number that WHO quotes as fatality rate will be bumped up from 3.4% to 5-6%. Higher if the CFR of Cases with known outcome rises.


The other half of “known reported Cases” are “Cases with No known Outcome”. Of those cases which currently is 42,366 (and does not include unknown infected people which could be 2-10 times that) there are two categories:

1) Infected Patient with Mild Condition (Currently 35,965 as of March 6th, 2020) - 85% of known infected cases with unknown outcome.

2) Patients in Serious or Critical Condition (which can be two sub categories but calculated and tracked currently and reported as one by WHO) is currently 6401 as of March 6th, 2020) - 15% of known infected cases with unknown outcome.


Watch this number very closely because the total cases of known infected people will continue to rise as more people get sick and show symptoms and are tested. Watch the number in the Serious to critical condition number and percentage. It of course varies country to country in data due to the medical system and available care, age and health of the individual. Older people over 60 and with under lying conditions like hypertension, heart disease, cancer etc have the highest fatality rate - the lowest being the young and heathy.

But based on the overall data tracked since the reporting began - approx 50% of the people in the category of cases in serious to critical condition are dying. I expect therefore how data haas been tracking that an additional 3000 plus will be dead in the next several weeks, doubling the current number of dead and again, making the CFR closer to 6%. Yes, a 6% death rate.

Compare that to the seasonal flu which has a death rate of .1% and the Spanish Flu of 1918-1920 that was 1-2% (depending on which data you get of how many thought to have been infected and who died ranging from 20 -50 Million people.

You don’t need to be a Math genius to be able to do the math of seeing that the COVID-19 Coronavirus is far far worse and what the number of infected and number of dead will likely be 1-2 years from now if the spread continues.

And don’t believe anyone who tells you there will be a cure and vaccine soon. Even if the global medical mad scientist community and greatest minds worked closely together, we won’t have a vaccine for at least one year. And what happens when we aren’t testing and containing and it spreads twice as fast.

[defacto7]

16. On the mark.

It never ceases to amaze me how many times this can be stated on this site alone and be completely ignored, then the same tropes are repeated. I'm tired of offering it, but it's necessary to counter the rise of misinformation.

Thank you.

[garybeck]

18. thank you but i think you're missing the point, as others are

the fox news memo says that this is just like the flu, which kills 25,000 people a year in this country an no one even notices. so we don't need to worry and we don't need to do anything

the math i posted was simply to show that that statement is BS. there are a lot of paremeters to debate and we don't know. i'm not trying to tell everyone how many people are going to die or anything like that.

i'm just saying the mantra coming from fox and refucklicans, that it's just like the flu, is BS. i think the math does enough to show that it is BS.

[Pachamama]

19. Clearly I am not missing the point which is why I posted real math to show the point n/t

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

23. Known reported cases.

What about all those who have mild or no symptoms at all? Who don't know they have it, or simply have no need to go to a doctor.

If we were to calculate flu deaths based only on those who go into hospital with flu, you come up with a 8-14% death rate. In reality, most people who get influenza recover without seeking medical care. The same is clearly true of this corona virus.

[mr_lebowski]

30. No offense but I think you're maybe missing something my ladyfriend PO :)

If there's 100,000 'cases with known outcome', and in 3400 of these cases, the patient died ... then the death rate is considered to be 3.4%.

The fact that 200K, 500K, 1M other people technically 'got the disease' as well ... is not relevant and is not used for calculation of death rates for any disease. Because that number is unknown, and it will always be unknown.

And 'hospitalizations' are not synonymous with 'known cases', for COVID or Flu.

Think of this as working something like a 'poll' would work. If I randomly sample 1000 people and 520 say they would vote for Biden, we can assume that the actual percentage of the total voting population that would vote for Biden would fall within a certain (fairly small) % range from 52%.

It doesn't matter that we failed to ask the other 279,999,000 other voters (or whatever the number is) who they'd vote for.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

37. Bingo.

The fact that 200K, 500K, 1M other people technically 'got the disease' as well ... is not relevant and is not used for calculation of death rates for any disease. Because that number is unknown, and it will always be unknown.

Very, very, very many more people have gotten this disease than are being calculated in the death rate.

Okay, let me offer you this. 270,000 people get sick and go into hospital. 30,000 die. What is the death rate. Are you panicked yet? Perhaps you should be. Although that first number does not include all who get this disease but don't go into hospital.

[mr_lebowski]

39. The only 'very very very' many people you know for sure about ...

Is the category of 'known cases with unknown outcome'.

Which are LIKELY to statistically hew very closely to your established numbers for 'known cases with known outcomes', when those cases are resolved to a known outcome.

But the unknown CASES ... are not relevant.

The death rate is not calculated by 'number who go to hospital', that's not the proper numerator or denominator. Not every known COVID case is going to the hospital either.

In the case of flu, the death rate calc is (X known deaths/Y known cases).
In the case of covid-19, the death rate calc is (X known deaths/Y known cases).

If the former is 3.4 and the latter is .2, then that's the much more dangerous disease.

What matters in comparing the two is in the consistency of the calculation and sampling method.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

43. If unknown cases are not relevant,

then we truly have no idea how many are really harboring the virus, whether they get sick or not.

I'm pretty sure that the number of deaths, at least in China, are being calculated on those who went to hospital. In this country, not many people have been tested, which for a lot of reasons is a problem.

[Crunchy Frog]

56. In medically developed countries (not the US),

they are doing testing on a MASSIVE scale. They are quarantining and monitoring people based on likely exposure, and yes, they are picking up cases with mild or no symptoms.

Moreover, people in badly hit countries who find themselves with mild respiratory symptoms are still getting themselves tested because they know that even if they only get mildly ill, that they could infect other, much more vulnerable people. In medically advanced countries, even China, they have the testing capacity to test those with even mild symptoms, and they do it because they're actively trying to keep it as contained as possible.

The United States is not the entire world.

[ThoughtCriminal]

21. Republicans are REALLY bad at math

Which also explains why they think tax cuts work.

[uponit7771]

26. What is the ***INFECTION*** rate !? Dying is horrible getting sick from this is bad !!

[littlemissmartypants]

34. It really is..

The thought of having my lungs turn to mush is way less than thrilling.

[elleng]

27. Thank you

[captain queeg]

28. So 35 million people get the seasonal flu in spite of wide spread vaccinations

And no vaccinations for coronavirus for at least a year, probably a year and a half. I’d think more people could end up getting C-19 this first year or so if it supposedly is equally easy to transmit.

[Onelove Vt]

31. The missing piece

Hospital bed capacity, staffing, and the medical supply chain are going to drive the treatment people will be able to receive. At least where I am I think it’s likely to be overwhelmed if many people need to be hospitalized. Much harder to keep the death rate down if people can’t be cared for. With this flu season we are already holding people for extended time in the ED because floors are full, delaying transfers from other hospitals and aggressively moving people from the ICU to other units to make space.

Travel nurses on several month contracts are working the floors. LNA s are in short supply. So if we add a significant amount of extremely sick patients I have deep fears about our ability to cope. What will happen if a significant amount of travel nurses around the country just decide not to sign a new contract anywhere. Will a significant number of staff fall ill or need to be quarantined for a lengthy amount of time? Will support staff and housekeepers making very little money just decide the job isn’t worth the risk?

Medical supplies come from around the world. Will we be able to get them? After Maria in Puerto Rico we were finding work arounds for certain IV fluids.

The drastic things that China did to reel in their numbers are not possible here. The risk is real

[Recursion]

33. Welcome to DU, and I 100% agree

In China about twice as many people as died needed long-term hospitalization, which required them to triple their number of hospital beds. And they already had more per capita than the US.

[littlemissmartypants]

35. Welcome to DU! ❤ nt

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

38. Even in a normal, boring, not very noticeable flu season,

influenza patients tend to overwhelm all the local hospitals.

That's in part because hospital beds and staffing are predicated on some specific number/percentage of local people who will get sick and need hospital care. It takes only a very small number of additional patients to overwhelm the system. And something along the lines of this corona virus (even though I happen to think the danger and numbers are vastly overblown) will easily overwhelm the system and then some. This is even without some apocalyptic numbers of deaths as we're constantly hearing on DU.

[greyl]

44. "The drastic things that China did"

Unimaginable here in USA, as yet.

That is failure of Trump admin imagination.

[littlemissmartypants]

36. Great post, garybeck. Thanks for sharing this. ❤ nt

[Spider Jerusalem]

49. it's more like 300x the mortality rate of the flu which is 0.01% (n/t)

[brewens]

52. "Like the flu" can mean a lot of things. I just read some about the "Spanish flu" back in 1918

that doesn't sound like any flu I ever had. Bleeding from nose, ears and eyes. People turning blue and a doctor saying he couldn't tell white people from black people.

We have people that will tell you they have the flu when it's anything from a common head cold to the real flu.

[BernieBabies]

54. The R0 number is more important because it's exponential

Even if the mortality rate ends up the same as the flu - which is unlikely until there is immunity built up or a vaccine - the R0 spread rate is currently over 2, as opposed to the the flu's R0 which is 1.3. The spread rate is exponential. The mortality rate is linear. The number of cases could grow much faster than for the flu, so the same mortality rate could end up with many more deaths.

[Terry_M]

55. It's not 3%

We don't know the actual mortality rate but this article on Slate sums it up best:

https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-mortality-rate-lower-than-we-think.html

Everyone on the Diamond Princess was tested (unlike the global figures, this is a situation where EVERYONE is tested rather than just those who show symptoms), 705 caught it, 6 died.
That's not 3.4%
It's still way higher than the regular flu but it's also way way lower than 3.4.

It's also probably not the true figure - on the one hand the people on the cruise ship were tested/identified early (not something that would happen in the general population), on the other hand due to the concentration and density of people, people were probably exposed to multiple doses of the virus repeatedly (more so than would normally happen). Also the demographics in terms of # of co-morbidities and the age of the passengers relative to the general population median age would play a factor (if the median age was higher than the general population, they would be over-representing mortality, if the median age was lower than the general population, they are under-representative of the actual mortality we can expect - since age is a large factor in mortality from this thing).

All of this to say that 6 out of 705 is probably also not the real number but I would guess it's a lot closer than 3.4%.