obvert
Posts: 14050
Joined: 1/17/2011 From: PDX (and now) London, UK Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Ian R quote:
ORIGINAL: witpqs snip for length Today more than 1,000 deaths were reported from this disease. With the possible exception of early on in a place where numbers might have been misreported or poorly reported, this was the first day with deaths over 1,000. Presumably the number of deaths per day will continue to increase for some period. This study makes reference to other studies which conclusions it agrees with. A reasonable figure of deaths worldwide from the flu is about 389,000 per year. The number of 1,079 deaths reported so far today is just above that rate. For whatever this perspective is worth, the death rate is at the moment about equal to the flu and continued increases at the recent rate of change would put it well beyond the flu. May I politely suggest that looking at per diem numbers in isolation does not provide an accurate statistical comparison*. It is becoming the accepted wisdom that covid-19 started in about mid October in Wuhan. Although there are doubters, the PRC is saying they are past the bell after 5 months. So a more useful comparison would be a figure of 6 months, or indeed 12 months. We have an almost 6 month figure for covid-19, the WHO reports at time of writing are: 226,800 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and more than 9,500 deaths. To get an annual figure that will probably be an over-estimate, let's quadruple that to around 38,000. There you have it - the flu is a ten times worse killer than covid-19. Edit: *- it may be useful say for predicting acute care requirements for limited periods. What is missing in this type of comparison you’re making is the extension of this into new areas. If it started simultaneously in all areas, and the flu does in the north and south during the cold seasons there, numbers would be much higher. We are seeing the beginning still in some areas, so it’ll be another 3-4 months before we know much about how bad this will be, and I would trust the scientists who are writing papers about the unchecked spread. If you don’t just take out a calculator and multiply the lowest mortality rate estimate of 0.5% x say 3.5 billion, or half the world’s population. That is about the amount who, without mitigation measures, would need to catch this to get herd immunity.
< Message edited by obvert -- 3/20/2020 8:15:38 AM >
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