Jürg Wyttenbach <[email protected]> wrote: But mortality is 2,3% for confirmed severe cases only not for the > average infected ones. This, so far, looks like being well below > influenza. >
I do not think so. I believe the 2.3% projection is for all cases, but I agree it is probably too high. Because uncounted infections are more prevalent than uncounted or misattributed deaths. Influenza is 0.1%. There is no way this is "well below" that. At least 1,770 people have died. If the rate is 0.1%, that means 1.8 million people have been infected. That is implausible. They say there are 71,000 cases. The NY Times says: "An analysis of 44,672 coronavirus patients in China whose diagnoses were confirmed by laboratory testing has found that 1,023 had died by Feb. 11, which suggests a fatality rate of 2.3 percent." I doubt all 44,672 of those cases were severe. That would be very badly done epidemiology. The people doing the study will try to find a representative sample of patients, from mild to severe. As you see, the sample includes most of the known patients and deaths on record.
