As far as I know there is no casualty in Greece. The woman is infected but still alive and fighting!
EuroFlyer wrote:
I don’t know where you take that from. Care to share your source ?
the influenza numbers on which I base the calculation are here in table 1: US CDC Source
The calculation of the “Best Case” is quite simplistic:
– I assume that it is about as infectious as influenza
– I assume that for those who develop symptoms bad enough so they seek help, about 10 times more die.
So why 10 times? The mortality rate of those who seek help for influenza is 0.3% (in a bad year, see source above).
It is early days for Covid-19, but a comprehensive study has calculated a 2.3% case-fatality rate for Covid-19 (see here)
All of these are back of the envelope, but an difference of one order of magnitude (factor x10) is plausible from these numbers.
And given that influenza kills around half a million or more in a bad year, unfortunately, yes, millions might die, even if it is NOT as infectious as @LeSving suspects.
Let’s put that number into perspective – every year, around 60 million people die. In a bad flu year, around 1% of that would be because of influenza. Covid-19 could easily boost the death rate to 66 million, and every 10th death will be because of this disease.
BTW – for comparison, the so-called “spanish flu” had an estimated case fatality rate of 2-3%, and infected around 50% of the population, so we are in similar territory here, although it had a different characteristic (it killed quite a few previously healthy adults)
@Dimme quoted a very informative article, but it contained the statement
The corresponding figure for last year’s Swedish seasonal flu was 3.7 per cent.
I doubt that very much. This is most likely the fatality rate for people hospitalised or otherwise in serious treatment, not the case fatality rate. CFRs of >1% magnitude would have the WHO up in arms, as that is EXACTLY what they are worried about (and what is happening in Covid-19)
Cobalt wrote:
I doubt that very much. This is most likely the fatality rate for people hospitalised or otherwise in serious treatment, not the case fatality rate. CFRs of >1% magnitude would have the WHO up in arms, as that is EXACTLY what they are worried about (and what is happening in Covid-19)
A report from the Swedish Public Health Agency states that during the 2017-18 season, the fatality rate of people who had a lab-confirmed diagnosis of seasonal flu was 4,9%. The figure for the year before was similar.
Yes, but how many of the infected get a lab confirmed diagnosis? Not many.
That report says 20,686 people were lab confirmed. That is 0.2% of the Swedish population (10m).
It is certain that 10-100x more people were actually infected.
CFR for influenza is measured in (low) 1/10ths of a percent, not in percent.
kwlf wrote:
What may be relatively new to us, in the UK at least, is the concept of deciding who lives and who dies. In recent years we have been blessed with the economic capacity to do all things possible for all people at all times, but this is becoming increasingly unsustainable. It wouldn’t take a large number of cases to push us to the point where we would have to start making decisions about whether we boot the 80 year old out of intensive care to make space for the 30 year old. Few people, these days, have experience of making those kinds of decisions. It’s not a responsibility I relish. But if the pandemic does break out on a large scale it may change Western society’s outlook on these issues quite profoundly.
A good point. I think the ability of each countries’ health system to cope with the disease will differ significantly.
If you look at just this one metric:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_countries_by_hospital_beds
The number of people who can be hospitalized in each country before hospitals run out of beds is surprisingly different even among otherwise similarly wealthy nations. South Korea (12.27) and Japan (13.05) have the highest number of beds per 1000 people, followed by Russia (8.05) and Germany (8.0). The UK has only 2.5 beds per 1000 people, second lowest in Europe after Sweden (2.2).
Of course this parameter alone does not say much about how good each health system is at treating its patients, the reverse might be argued that countries with a higher number of beds are just less efficient. But I don’t believe this. We often have trouble to find a bed for all patients on weekends, and I honestly have no idea how colleagues in the UK or Sweden cope with the low capacity they have available…
MedEwok wrote:
second lowest in Europe after Sweden (2.2).
This is what makes me seriously worried. Sweden has had a mounting crisis in public health care for many years now. It entirely caused by bad political decisions such as:
- Accepting that qualified nurses resign en masse rather than paying them better.
- Making costly reorganisations without any evidence that they will improve the situation.
- Prioritising lowering of taxes over proper funding of the health care system.
The quality of care when it is provided is still world-class, but the capacity is not.
Data about the ability of the health care system to handle an epidemic have been classified by the National Board of Health and Welfare. This doesn’t inspire confidence.
