Recovered after needing hospital treatment, you mean.
No. I mean recovered and/or discharged after being confirmed as infected – see American Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 162, Issue 5, 1 September 2005, Pages 479–486,
I have seen various estimates of the lethality of this virus, but none nearly has high as 10%.
Try https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/#comparison:
An alternative method, which has the advantage of not having to estimate a variable, and that is mentioned in the American Journal of Epidemiology study cited previously as a simple method that nevertheless could work reasonably well if the hazards of death and recovery at any time t measured from admission to the hospital, conditional on an event occurring at time t, are proportional, would be to use the formula:
CFR = deaths / (deaths + recovered)
which, with the latest data available, would be equal to:
2,629 / (2,629 + 25,272) = 9% CFR (worldwide
It’s too early to be sure what the overall mortality rate will be. The Chinese National Health Commission has quoted 4.9% for Wuhan. The mortality rate for SARS was estimated at 4% while it was ongoing and finished up at 9.6%.
SARS was identified and contained before it killed more than a few 737Max loads of victims because responsible people took the unknown threat seriously:https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/119464/10_4-5_2004_655_662.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y::
Countries around the world, guided by WHO, adopted aggressive and unprecedented measures including travel restrictions, special entry requirements, screening procedures at airports including temperature checks and quarantine. Other control measures included public information and education to encourage prompt reporting of symptoms, early identification and isolation of patients, vigorous contact tracing, and management of close contacts. These succeeded to a large extent in containing the disease.
Hospitals, schools, and borders were closed, and several governments advised their citizens not to travel to hard-hit areas. Some airlines decided not to carry passenger with a fever of 37.5 °C or above on any of their flights regardless of local government regulations. Hong Kong adapted an electronic tracking system used in criminal investigations for contact tracing…
A lot of the mortality may depend on how quickly the cases come through. The figures I’ve seen for mortality are 1-3%, but 20% are becoming seriously unwell. If the cases trickle through then hospitals will be able to cope, but if there is a deluge with thousands to millions of people being unwell simultaneously then the question will be ‘what is the mortality of the virus without medical care’? That figure may be much higher than 3%. 10% may not be out of the question. We still do not know.
The other issue is what happens to all the ordinarily unwell patients. If you have a 50 year old with COVID-19 and an 80 year old with a heart attack, and both need a hospital bed, who will you give it to? Will you carry on with chemotherapy in the midst of a pandemic? People may die of COVID-19 without ever being infected by it.
Locally our hospital has 6 intensive care beds and serves a population of 1-200,000 depending on whether it’s the holiday season and whether you are talking about elective or emergency care. There are 20 medical beds on the respiratory/cardiac ward and 20 monitored beds in the emergency department. Pretty much every bed will have oxygen and there are about 180 beds in the hospital. There are also a few small GP-led community hospitals with very limited facilities e.g. no X-rays.
Given that the hospital is overwhelmed already, with patients in corridors and a great deal of elective work cancelled due to the pressure of emergency admissions, what is going to happen if we have even modest numbers of seriously unwell COVID-19 patients? Something will have to give.
Good points by kwlf. In my hospital, with 1500 beds, of which about 10% are intensive care beds with respirators, the seasonal flu (Influenza) typically leads to a majority of ICU beds being occupied by Influenza patients, with all elective surgery that requires post-operative intensive care or monitoring being delayed as a consequence. That is how we cope. If Covid-19 would hit us at the same time as Influenza, we’d be stretched to the breaking point. And we’re the most capable hospital by some margin in a 100 km radius.
Jacko wrote:
CFR = deaths / (deaths + recovered)
This works if you know the number of people who had the infection and recovered. People who are not ill enough to seek medical care will not be counted.
Iran deputy minister catches it.
This particularly caught my attention "Unlike in Italy, Iranian officials are refusing to impose quarantines in areas affected by the outbreak. They say quarantines are old-fashioned and that they do not believe in them. "
How very progressive of Iran, if rather silly. Sounds very much like the no border brigade.
Last night I spent $1500 or so on non-refundable Swiss/Italian/French hotels and ferries to and from northern Italy in June… having earlier spent $1400 on non refundable airline tickets. Our trips usually come out to about $5K, most of it not refundable. Wish me luck. 
I’m guessing by then most of the fuss will be over, time will tell.
This is the problem 
Yesterday two new cases were reported in Germany. It remains totally unclear at this point how the epidemic will develop here. The next couple of weeks will tell…
It seems that many infected people get very mild symptoms or no symptoms at all. That will probably mean that the epidemic will spread further. On the other hand it will also mean that the death rate is lower than reported so far.
Based on the CDC data for the 2017/18 US influenza season, and rounded a bit
- an unknown number was infected with influenza
- approximately 15 percent of the population developed symptoms (45 of 330m)
- around half of these sought medical help (21 of 45m)
- 2 percent of those were hospitalised (810k of 21m)
- 8 percent of those then died (61k of 810k)
Death rates – 0.15, percent of infected (61k of 45m), 0.3 percent of those who were ill enough to seek help.
So how does Covid-19 compare?
- it appears to be quite infectious – probably the same magnitude as influenza, or worse (given that we have influenza vaccines)
- death rates appear to be an order of magnitude higher (single digit percent of those who develop symptoms, not 0.x percent)
So at this point, if it becomes pandemic, we can expect around 10 times as many dead than in a bad flu year as the BEST case. And if it becomes endemic after that, every year (unless we develop immunity / an effective vaccine / the strain dies out between seasons)
