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haxxiy on 08 March 2020
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SvennoJ said:
haxxiy said:

Too early to tell with different testing methods. Italy sits at 5%, Germany at 0.1%. Many undetected cases in Italy, a lot of early detected cases in Germany that can still develop into a more serious infection. There are still plenty places with active cases and no deaths yet. All we can do for now is see what the experts say:

In his opening remarks at the March 3 media briefing on Covid-19, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated:

“Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died. By comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1% of those infected.” [13]

Initial estimate was 2%

Initially, the World Health Organization (WHO) had mentioned 2% as a mortality rate estimate in a press conference on Wednesday, January 29 [1][2] and again on February 10. However, on January 29 WHO specified that this was a very early and provisional estimate that might have changed. Surveillance was increasing, within China but also globally, but at the time it was said that:

  1. We don't know how many were infected ("When you look at how many people have died, you need to look at how many people where infected, and right now we don't know that number. So it is early to put a percentage on that."[1][2]).
  2. The only number currently known is how many people have died out of those who have been reported to the WHO.
  3. It is therefore very early to make any conclusive statements about what the overall mortality rate will be for the novel coronavirus, according to the World Health Organization

Of course for the Flu, how many get infected is also just an estimate. Many more can have very mild flu symptoms and not even know they caught the bug. In the end, the level of care that is needed to keep the death rate low is what's the most worrying atm. The serious / critical rate is just as important.

Anyway so far, knock on wood, less new cases today than yesterday. It doesn't mean anything, it goes up and down all the time, but any trend needs to start somewhere. Get that growth factor under 1.0

No need to remember all of that to someone with a medical background :P

That is precisely my point. You won't likely have any real estimates until late summer or fall and those will come from statistical models and not the official charts. What we have, though, are glimpses based on probability-proportional-to-size sampling.

You can't claim to be worried about "level of care" or something like this based on numbers that are suffering from self-selection bias and under-coverage and ignore quality data that goes, more or less, on the opposite direction. That's cherry picking out of the very concern you claim to be born from it.